The Arkansas House this week approved a
bill that opponents say targets the transgender community.
House members voted 65-3 in favor of
Republican Representative Bob Ballinger's bill, dubbed by the media
as the “bathroom bill light.” The bill (House Bill 1986) expands
the state's indecent exposure statute to include a person who exposes
his or her genitals to a person of the opposite sex in a public place
“under circumstances in which the person could reasonably believe
the conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm.”
The National Center for Transgender
Equality condemned passage of the bill, saying that it essentially
makes it a crime for a transgender people to use the bathroom of
their choice.
“This blatant and deliberate attack
on over 15,000 transgender Arkansans would make it a crime –
punishable by prison time and a lifetime criminal record – for
transgender people to meet one of the most basic human needs and use
the restroom,” said Mara Keisling, the group's executive director.
“If this bill becomes law, transgender people, as well as anyone
who is simply suspected of being transgender, will have to live in
constant fear that they will be interrogated, arrested, or even
prosecuted and put in prison every time they simply need to use the
restroom.”
Keisling added that Ballinger's bill
goes further than North Carolina's House Bill 2 “by attaching
serious, unconstitutional criminal penalties to the simple act of
using the restroom.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, said that “by making it
illegal for transgender people to access restroom or locker
facilities consistent with their identity, it opens them up to
increased discrimination and harassment – as well as criminal
consequences – as they simply go about their everyday lives.”
The bill now heads to the Senate.