Cooler heads prevailed March 1 when South Dakota’s governor vetoed a bill that would have made it the first state in the United States to approve a law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their sex at birth. Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who initially reacted positively to the proposal, retracted and instead said he needed to research the issue further. He ultimately rejected the bill after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign insisted it was discriminatory. In his veto message, Daugaard said the bill “does not address any pressing issue” and such decisions were best left to local school officials.
This bill, which was part of a package of anti-LGBT bills before the South Dakota legislature, would have forced schools to choose between violating state and federal law, which requires them to treat all students according to their gender identity and provide them with equal access to restrooms and other facilities. If passed, it would have opened schools up to costly and time-consuming lawsuits and put them at risk of losing their federal funding.
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