Committee advances Representative Bulso’s proposal to prohibit transgender students from using multi-occupant bathrooms of their identified sex

Representative Gino Bulso (Photos by the Tennessee General Assembly and Stephen Candrews/Pexels)

State Representative Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, told members of the House Education Committee that he agreed to sponsor House Bill 64 after hearing from constituents about an incident from the summer.

Bulso says those constituents enrolled their high school daughter in a summer program at a private university where she was asked if she’d be ok with a transgender woman as her roommate. The family objected said Bulso, but the university assigned transgender students to be assigned to the same floor.

“In the restrooms, and the changing areas, and the showers at the end of the hall, their daughter was there sharing those facilities with biological boys who identified as girls and obviously they very much objected to that,” said Bulso.

Bulso’s bill would require restrooms, changing areas, and showers that are multi-occupant to be segregated by biological sex in residential education programs involving minors.

He argued this move is needed to protect young women but the bill received pushback from one mother who signed up to speak against it.

Eva Fraska described the bill form of discrimination to prevent transgender youth from participating in education programs.

“What this bill does is legislate and legitimize hate instead of showing love to kids who so desperately need it. Studies prove that these types of bathroom policies actually increase the risk of sexual assault against transgender and non-binary youth,” said Fraska “There is no empirical evidence that this bill will do anything but hurt an already vulnerable population.”

Bulso’s bill passed on a party line 13 to 3 vote, with all three Democrats on the committee voting against it.

It now goes to the full House for a vote. The Senate version is schedule to face a vote in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

Representative Bulso has a lengthy history of sponsoring legislation that deals with “hot-button” social issues, including a much-discussed bill last year that would have prohibited pride flags in the classroom.  That bill failed in the Senate.