State senator Steve O’Ban (R-Pierce County) cracked open a can of carbonated something before settling into his vice chair’s seat on the state senate’s Law and Justice Committee, where dozens of people had signed up to testify about the “Genital Check” bill.
It’s not every day that state legislators hold public hearings on how to match penises and vaginas to their owners, but the hearing on SB 6548 concerned just that. Sponsors of the bill—all Republicans, including the chair of the Law and Justice Committee sitting to O’Ban’s left—were concerned about cis women and children being exposed to transgender people’s parts in sex-segregated bathrooms. SB 6548 would amend state antidiscrimination law to allow businesses, organizations, and individuals to turn transgender people away from using segregated bathrooms and locker rooms.
The bill’s primary sponsor insisted the legislation was harmless.
“This bill simply segregates genders until they are postoperative,” SB 6548 sponsor Judy Warnick (R-Moses Lake) told O’Ban and the rest of his committee. “I don’t think we are trying to discriminate.” (It would appear Warnick assumes all transgender people want or can afford to have expensive and complicated reassignment surgery.)…
