South Dakota’s Transgender Bill Hits Home

Campus bathrooms are like the folks who use them: trans or not, they’re remarkable mostly because of their general similarity.

That’s apparent when you look at the sign on one of MSUM’s unisex bathrooms.

Pretty basic.

In fact, indistinguishable from other gender-specific bathrooms in all its details, aside from the label someone’s posted on it.

“Here at MSUM, we try to be as inclusive and progressive as possible,” said Dr. Donna Brown, the university’s Chief Diversity Officer.

But, amidst a national debate that’s focused on whether the small differences between us should keep some of us out of some bathrooms, South Dakota is setting a new standard in the nation: assigned at birth access only.

That’s a real problem, Caitlyn Jenner said Tuesday, for trans folks everywhere.

Some MSUM students agree, even as proponents of the bill in South Dakota characterize it as a safety issue for women who could be predated upon by men posing as trans to gain access to their bathroom and locker room spaces.

“I would not feel uncomfortable, because women have stalls,” said MSUM student Morgan Notch. “If that’s what you identify as and you’re in transition, that’s where you should be allowed to go.”

Brown said there are about  8 to 10 students who’ve recently self-identified as trans at the university, and Notch and her classmate Arianna Karsky share classes with one transwoman student.

Both said that when their transwoman student wants access to the ladies rooms, they’re ready to share with her.

“At some point it will reach around to every state, if it hasn’t already,” Karsky said.

Brown was surprised to see South Dakota take up the restricted access issue, and said she’d be surprised as well to see North Dakota do the same.

Minnesota legislators rejected a related bill in April of last year.