“Disgusting!”
That’s what Republican Virginia lawmaker Robert Marshall called his colleagues in Richmond after they moved to take his anti-transgender bathroom bill off the table Thursday.
His “Physical Privacy Act” would have regulated the use of bathrooms and locker rooms in schools, highway rest stops and other government-owned buildings.
“You campaign one way and come down here and kill things silently,” Del. Robert G. Marshall of Prince William said to members of his GOP-controlled House subcommittee, after they used an unrecorded voice vote to kill his bill, according to the Washington Post.
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His proposed legislation was similar to North Carolina’s House Bill 2, swiftly enacted by that state’s Republicans in March of last year. Marshall’s bill would have required everyone to use the restroom that corresponds with the gender on their original birth certificates. On Friday, Marshall attempted to sway his colleagues by proposing an amendment to strike the word “original” from his bill.
That amendment would have allowed those who have their birth certificates changed to reflect their change in gender to use the bathroom matching their gender identity.
As the Post reported, Marshall bristled at the suggestion his proposal was a “bathroom bill,” arguing strenuously that his bill was to protect women and girls. He said he feared women could be forced to undress and shower in full view of men who claim to be transgender. These predatory men, he argued, might pretend to be transgender to gain access to areas where women are undressed, such as locker rooms. That, despite enormous evidence and testimony that no one in America has ever been convicted of such a crime and that predatory laws already enforce that possibility.
After hearing testimony from both conservative and liberal activists, the subcommittee’s five Republicans and two Democrats uttered not a single word, and Del. Barry D. Knight, a Republican from Virginia Beach moved to lay the bill on the table, which means that the bill is dead, unless the subcommittee reverses itself within a week’s time.