Massachusetts ban on convicted sex offenders using opposite sex’s bathroom struck down from transgender bill
Massachusetts will be making all public restrooms, showers, and intimate accommodations wide open to members of the opposite biological sex as legislators rejected amendments for restriction, one that have banned convicted sex offenders from accessing the facilities of the opposite sex.
The bill (H. 4343) passed the state House of Representatives, 116-36, with the support of eight Republicans and the opposition of 12 Democrats.
The proposal would reorient state laws away from a biological understanding of sexuality by replacing the word “sex” with “gender identity” in existing state laws. The bill also requires “any public accommodation…without limitation” to allow people to use the intimate facilities of their preferred gender at the time.
Ahead of its passage, lawmakers rejected 36 amendments, including Amendment 9 which would “allow individual public accommodation to ban level 2 or 3 sex offenders from using sex-segregated facilities that are not consistent with their assigned sex.”
The amendment failed 58-94. A roll call may be seen here. (H/T Life Site News)
“What is truly disturbing is the House’s absolute refusal to accept any amendments which might have provided safeguards for women and children in places like locker rooms or public showers,” said Andrew Beckwith, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute. “The bill as passed allows registered sex offenders to claim a gender identity in order to access whatever bathroom they want.”
“The bill does not exempt churches or women’s shelters from having to yield to the demands of a man claiming to be a woman,” Beckwith said.
Brian Camenker of MassResistance told LifeSiteNews that “the amendment was technically superfluous.”
It did not confront “the real problem,” he said, “that the entire concept of ‘gender identity’ or ‘transgenderism’ is nothing but unscientific nonsense” and “that the ‘civil rights’ argument being used was a sham and mockery of the actual civil rights movement.”
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, told the Boston Globe on Tuesday that he would sign the bill if it passed in its current form. “No one should be discriminated against in Massachusetts because of their gender identity,” he said in a statement.
Critics claim that this is a flip-flop for the Republican Governor, who opposed what he dismissively called the “bathroom bill” as a candidate for governor in 2010.
[…] Bathroom privacy has been an issue with the transgender and gender fluid laws opening the doors to men entering the ladies’ restrooms without penalty. In fact, Massachusetts even rejected language to a law preventing sex offenders and convicted pedophiles from such access. More on that HERE […]