South Dakota governor signs anti-transgender bathroom bill

A new law in South Dakota will restrict transgender people’s use of communal facilities in public schools and state-owned buildings starting July 1.

Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed bill HB 1259 into law on Friday, which prohibits transgender people from using changing rooms and restrooms that align with their gender identity. The bill also allows people who encounter transgender people in these facilities to seek declaratory and injunctive relief against the school or state if officials did not take reasonable steps to prevent the transgender person from using that facility.

“South Dakota is a place where common-sense values remain common,” Rhoden said in a statement, adding that the bill promotes “freedom from the ‘woke’ agenda like what has happened in too many other places.”

This is the first time South Dakota has had a state law restricting transgender people’s bathroom access, thanks to the overwhelmingly conservative state legislature this session. A bill had previously passed through both chambers of the state legislature in 2016 before it was vetoed by then Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Samantha Chapman, advocacy manager at the ACLU of South Dakota, said the organization is exploring its options against the law.

“This is a really painful law,” Chapman said. “It’s really disheartening and kind of heartbreaking, frankly, to see Rhoden take this position and sign this bill into law.”

South Dakota is at least the 13th state to adopt a law barring transgender girls and women from girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities. A similar measure was sent Thursday to the governor in Tennessee; a bill is also on the governor’s desk in Montana.

Most of the bans in other states face court challenges, but those haven’t had final rulings. Courts have struck down some school district-level bathroom bans across the country. But this week, a federal appeals panel ruled 3-0 that a district judge was not wrong to allow Idaho’s ban to be enforced while the case is considered.

Since he returned to office in January, President Donald Trump has signed a series of executive orders intended to curtail the rights of transgender people. President Joe Biden’s administration had sought to apply the federal barring of gender discrimination at schools to gender identity, but the courts put the brakes on that.

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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.