Group Wants To Repeal Bathroom Rule

As the state Legislature opens for the new year, officials with the Just Want Privacy Campaign are filing a ballot initiative with the Secretary of State to repeal the Washington State Human Rights Commission’s open bathroom and locker room rule.

Spokesperson Kaeley Haver says the initiative would revoke the new rule. "There's a lot of pieces of the current rule that were very shortsighted and weren't thought through," she says. "There's tons of loopholes. We want to repeal the rule and come up with one that meets everyone's needs."
The initiative would remove the mandate, require public schools to maintain sex-specific facilities while providing reasonable accommodations for gender non-conforming students, and allow businesses to determine their own bathroom and locker room policies.

Though their first attempt at a similar initiative failed to generate enough signatures to make the November 2016 ballot, Just Want Privacy representatives say they are confident that this year’s efforts can yield a different result. Lawmakers in at least eight states have introduced bathroom/locker room bills for consideration in the upcoming session.