The California state senate has voted 21-9 to pass A.B. 1266, a K-12 transgender rights bill that will change the education code to specify that regardless of the gender listed on a piece of paper, a student can participate in sex-segregated activities, athletic teams and use bathroom facilities consistent with his or her gender identity.
Transgender children experience a disconnect between their sex, which is based on their anatomy, and their gender, which includes behaviors, roles and activities, experts say.
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This sparked a heated debate on the Senate floor about when transgender students' right to expression might conflict with other students' discomfort and right to privacy.
Supporters said the bill is needed to protect students from bullying and other abuse. They also said it represents the next front in their effort to provide equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, just days after same-sex marriages resumed in California.
"We know that these particular students suffer much abuse and bullying and denigration. We can't change that overnight, but what we can do is make sure that the rules are such that they get a fair shake," Senator Mark Leno told the Associated Press.
Some school districts around the country have implemented similar policies, but the bill's author says AB1266 would mark the first time a state has mandated such treatment by statute.
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The issue has become a battle in some local school districts around the country. Just recently, a Colorado transgender first-grader who was born a boy but identifies as a girl has won the right to use the girls' restroom in her school.
The Colorado Rights Division ruled in favor of Coy Mathis in her fight against the Fountain-Fort Carson School District.
"We're very thrilled that Coy is able to return to school and have the same rights that all the other girls had, that she should have had and was afforded by law to begin with. We're extremely happy that she's going to be treated equally and we thank the civil rights division for coming to this conclusion," Kathryn Mathis, Coy's mother, said. "We're very grateful to the voters of Colorado for putting its laws into place to begin with."
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