The mayor of a California city has proposed an ordinance that would ban transgender women from using bathrooms that comport with their gender identity, marking the latest effort to restrict transgender rights.
Mayor Greg Meister of Porterville — a city of about 60,000 at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Tulare County — put forward the proposal at a City Council meeting Wednesday, saying his goal is to protect biological girls and women.
The Protect Women’s Safe Spaces ordinance would ban transgender women from accessing restrooms and locker rooms that comport with their gender identity. The ordinance also seeks to remove transgender women and girls from women’s sports, Meister said at the council meeting.
“Gender dysphoria does not overrule women’s rights,” Meister said in an interview with The Times. “Women have fought for equality, and it’s not fair that a biological man can jeopardize their rights.”
The local ordinance is part of a growing effort at various levels of government — from local school boards to the federal government under President Trump — to ban access for transgender women to women’s facilities.
“This is part of a coordinated attack on transgender people,” said Amanda Goad, director of the LGBTQ, Gender and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU of Southern California. “This is part of a broader project to exert more state control over people’s bodies and lives.”
Meister agreed that his ordinance was part of a national trend and not based on local issues.
He said that no one, including women’s rights groups, approached him about the ordinance, which he came up with on his own. He also said there had been no instances in Porterville of transgender women using their preferred restrooms. He said he did not know if any transgender people live in Porterville and that he had no trans friends.
Despite the fact that the issue has not come up in Porterville, Meister said he wanted to confront it before it became an issue.
The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday, 5 to 0, to send Meister’s motion to the city attorney and city manager for review. The language could still change and the city will follow California law, Meister said.
“They’re going to look at the language, look at what’s plausible and legal from their standpoint and then to bring it back to council to make a decision on. I’m sure it’ll get chopped up,” he said.
Goad said there could be many legal issues with the ban, including constitutional matters under the equal protection clause as well as possible violations of California law.
“It’s very likely it would be challenged if it were actually enacted,” Goad said.
