Montana Lawmakers Reject Restroom Ban for Transgender Rep.
United States: Montana lawmakers on Tuesday defeated a bid to bar a transgender legislator from using the women’s restroom at the state capitol, with some Republicans Republicans voting down the measure with Democrats, as reported by Reuters.
Zephyr Expresses Gratitude
Newly elected trans lawmaker Zooey Zephyr, a Democratic Representative of Colorado, said she fully appreciates the action of her fellow lawmakers who rejected the proposed ban on conversion therapy for minors in a statehouse committee this year.
“I’m happy to see that this proposed ban failed and am grateful for my colleagues – particularly my republican colleagues – who recognized this as a distraction from the work we were elected to do,” Zephyr said on X.
Similar Debate at the National Level
The failed Montana measure came as another such Republican strategy at the U.S. Capitol in a bill that would deny Representative-elect Sarah McBride, a transgender woman from Delaware, access to women’s restrooms at the Capitol. The bill has not been voted on and passed; nonetheless, the Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a statement, asserted that only “individuals of that biological sex” would use the bathroom.
Background on Montana’s Legislative Struggles
The Montana proposal introduced by the Republican Representative Jerry Schillinger would have sought to provide two legislative restrooms for use by males and females as defined by their chromosome and their reproductive and endocrine organs alone.
All Democrats, as well as four Republicans, voted in a Joint Rules Committee meeting in Helena, the Flathead Beacon newspaper reported, against the measure, as reported by Reuters.
Montana Republicans in 2023 banned Zephyr from participating in floor debates after she said that decision would leave “blood on your hands” for any lawmaker backing a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors.
