Gov. Mark Gordon signed two bills banning transgender people from different public areas on March 3.
SF 62 prohibits public school students from going to restrooms and locker rooms that don’t correspond with their sex assigned at birth.
Layha Spoonhunter is a community activist on the Wind River Reservation. They’re Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone and Oglala Lakota, and two-spirit.
They said teenage years are difficult for trans youth as it is without legislation like SF 62 that seeks to restrict the community further.
“The fact is that now your identity, that you know who you are, is being invalidated by elected officials, and that it will put trans youth in a position where safety is an issue for them,” said Spoonhunter.
Supporters said the law is meant to keep what they call “biological men” out of sensitive areas, and that the bill will keep women safe.
SF 62 went into effect immediately.
“Protecting privacy in public spaces act”
The second bill bans transgender people from sex-desginated public spaces associated with the state more broadly.
HB 72 aims to ban trans people from sex-desginated public spaces associated with the state, like community colleges, correctional facilities and some bathrooms and locker rooms.
It lets the general public sue those facilities if someone who isn’t presenting as the sex they were assigned at birth uses them.
“We live in a very different world than when I grew up, in a different world than I would have expected even 10 years ago, but this is where we are,” the bill sponsor Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland) said. “The bill provides clarity and creates consistent policies that prioritize privacy and safety in public high schools and higher education.”
Opponents of the bill say trans people have existed for as long as humanity has.
Ari Kamil works in Riverton as an environmental health specialist for Wind River Family and Community Healthcare and is trans.
“It’s invasive, and it’s insulting,” they said. “And it's very infantilizing. The bottom line is that this is just doing so much harm, and it is not doing anybody any good. It has the potential to take the violence [against trans people] to the next level.”
Between 2017 and 2023, there were 263 homicides nationwide of transgender or gender-expansive people, according to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.
HB 72 will go into effect on July 1. Gordon didn’t provide a rationale for signing either HB 72 or SF 62.
Waiting to see
Gordon hadn’t taken action on the “What is a Woman Act” as of March 7. The bill would establish legal definitions for the terms “biological sex,” “man” and “woman,” and could ban trans people from accessing the bathrooms, locker rooms and other public spaces of their choice, including rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters.
And SF 44, “Fairness in sports-intercollegiate athletics,” which would ban trans people from sports teams aligned with their gender identity, also hadn’t been signed or vetoed by Gordon as of March 7.
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