A law requiring California public schools to let transgender students use sex-segregated facilities is set to take effect Jan. 1, despite a legal challenge. [KTVU]
The law will allow students identifying as transgender to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the sex with which they identify.
A coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for All Students is currently gathering signatures in attempt to launch a referendum to repeal the law on the November ballot. Privacy for All Students is reported to have gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures, and counties have until Jan. 8 to verify them.
If the campaign achieves the mandatory number of signatures, it will trigger a suspension of the law.
Nonetheless, the California School Boards Associations is moving ahead with its implementation. The association advised schools to handle transgender facility requests on a case-by-case basis, but also to prepare for making private changing arrangements for both transgender students and for classmates who object to changing with them.
“We did strike a balance between the sensitivities associated with gender identity, not only for those students who experience a change in their gender status but the students who would be in the same facilities, in the same classrooms and on the same teams,” said association General Counsel Keith Bray.
