The Science of Trans-Inclusive Bathroom Bills

The ACLU is currently tracking over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills across the country, the vast majority of which target transgender people, and transgender youth in particular. With this rise in anti-LGBTQ legislation, one type of bill has resurfaced: bathroom bills that would force transgender people to use the bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth (i.e., what's on their birth certificates).

High profile figures, including children's book author J. K. Rowling, have claimed that such policies would promote public safety. They imply that trans-inclusive bathroom policies will result in more sexual assaults. In my new book, Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity, I try to move away from charged political rhetoric and towards science. After all, the best public policies are evidence-based, not rhetoric-based. Let's take a look at what the peer-reviewed research suggests when it comes to policies that allow trans people to use the facilities that match their gender identities.

In 2019, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from a sample of 3,673 transgender students in grades seven through twelve. Their study, published in the journal Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics), found that policies that force trans youth to use the bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth were associated with elevated rates of sexual assault against transgender kids in schools.

Participants were asked, "During the past twelve months, how many times did anyone force you to do sexual things that you did not want to do (count things such as kissing, touching, or being physically forced to have sexual intercourse."

The results were sobering: 25.9% of participants in the study overall reported that they had been sexually assaulted in the past year alone. Going to a school that forced trans kids to use facilities of their sex assigned at birth was associated with between a 1.3 and 2.5-fold increased risk of sexual assault victimization in the past year.

Ironically, proponents of bathroom bills to force kids to use the bathrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth argue that they are working to prevent trauma, when in reality they seem to be generating trauma for vulnerable transgender students.

While the Harvard study showed that trans-inclusive facility policies are linked to better safety for trans youth, the study didn't look at the impact of such policies for cisgender people or the general population.

However, another study, from researchers at UCLA, looked at just this. They examined different localities within Massachusetts—some of which had trans-inclusive facility policies—and others that did not. They then submitted public record requests to analyze the sexual assault rates in each locality. They found that trans-inclusive facility policies were not associated with any increased risk of sexual assault against the general (primarily cisgender) population.

If we look at these two studies together, we see that trans-inclusive public accommodations do not appear to be linked to any increase in assault risk for cisgender people, while they are linked to dramatically lower risk against trans young people. Despite the constant political rhetoric that trans people are dangerous in bathrooms, the reality is that they are in danger from people in bathrooms. It's vital that we protect them from being forced into bathrooms and other public facilities that aren't safe for them.

Sadly, these studies rarely make their way into the political rhetoric around bathroom bills that would put trans young people at risk. Transgender people deserve access to public accommodations just like everyone else. Being able to go to school without the risk of being assaulted should be a basic right for students. This is an area in which it is vital that public policy be driven by research and data, rather than political rhetoric that paints a false portrait of transgender people as dangerous.

If we all work together to share this peer-reviewed science and research with the general public, we can move toward a safer more evidence-based world with public policies that promote all of our wellbeing.