South Dakota governor faces deadline on transgender bill

Before making his decision, Daugaard met with transgender students and parents.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Fred Deutsch, said he would ask lawmakers not to override the veto, saying more focus on the issue would detract from the Legislature’s accomplishment this year.

Deutsch says the bill was meant to be a practical solution to “our evolving social values on gender issues”. “The eyes of the nation are on South Dakota, and we strongly urge Governor Daugaard to seize this opportunity to show true leadership by blocking this disgraceful bill and standing up for all of South Dakota’s children”.

By forcing the transgender student-known in the media as “Student A”-to use a separate locker room, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights ruled that Township High School District 211 had discriminated against the student “on the basis of sex”.

“I think it’s obviously going to be close in the Senate”, Senate Majority Leader Corey Brown, R-Gettysburg said. They argued the bill was needed to protect student privacy and safety. Federal officials have previously threatened to cut off funding to districts in California and IL that didn’t allow transgender students to use their preferred bathrooms and changing areas.

Daugaard has proposed expanding eligibility to roughly another 50,000 South Dakota residents, as long as the state’s share of the cost is covered by other savings.

In his veto message, Daugaard wrote that the bill “does not address any pressing issue”.

In courts – again citing Title IX – the Justice Department has weighed in to support a transgender student in the country’s most advanced lawsuit over student restroom access. Rather, it called for transgender students to be given “reasonable accommodation” – specifically, the use of a “single-occupancy restroom, unisex restroom or the controlled use of a restroom, locker room or shower room”.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard must decide today what he’ll do with a bill that would require transgender students in South Dakota’s public schools to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities based on their gender at birth.

Smith says the ACLU would represent any such students in their complaints.

If the governor chooses not to act by end of day Tuesday, the legislation automatically becomes law. The ACLU had promised to encourage legal action if the bill became law. The state’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure in February.

Dennis Daugaard on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have required transgender students in the state’s public schools to use bathrooms and locker rooms that matched their sex at birth. Over the weekend, he said, “a number of different businesses came out and said this would reflect poorly on South Dakota if the governor signed it into law”.

Besides South Dakota, 13 other states are considering legislation that would restrict transgender students’ bathroom access.

Opponents argued the measure discriminates against transgender and gender non-conforming students and would be harmful to them both mentally and physically. But in the Senate, the bill only passed by a 20-15 margin, meaning at least four senators would have to switch their votes to reach the necessary two-thirds threshold.