Florida is now forcing private colleges to ban trans students from using appropriate restrooms

Transgender students in Florida will soon be banned from using the appropriate restroom in private colleges and universities, just months after a rule banning trans people from using the appropriate restroom in public schools went into effect.

The Florida Board of Education passed a rule requiring private colleges and universities in the state to only allow people to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their sex assigned at birth. The rule comes after Florida passed the Safety in Private Spaces Act, which went into effect this past July, requiring public schools to force trans people to use the facilities associated with their sex assigned at birth. The new rule requires the private institutions to follow the same law.

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After an angry crowd accused the district of “moral depravity” with its “Luciferian” policy, a vote for a school tax levy failed.

One person during public comment pointed out that the rule for public schools only requires campuses have one unisex bathroom that every trans and nonbinary person has to share, even sometimes with instructors.

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“What it actually does right now in the public schools at least is the unisex restroom is the teacher’s restroom,” she said, according to WFSU. “So we have a situation whereby all the non-binary and transgender and the teachers all line up for this unisex bathroom.”

A member of the anti-LGBTQ+ organization Moms for Liberty – an SPLC-designated extremist group – said that the rule will create “safety and clarity” and ends “confusion.”

Private universities and colleges are required to include a rule about bathroom usage in their student handbooks as well as a disciplinary procedure for transgender students who don’t follow the rule. The state department of education could revoke certification from faculty and staff who refuse to follow the rule. Education institutions that don’t submit for certification under the Safety in Private Spaces Act could face disciplinary action, including revocation of their licenses by the Commission for Independent Education.