BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1732|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1732
Author: Ting (D), et al.
Amended: 8/9/16 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE TRANS. & HOUSING COMMITTEE: 9-2, 6/21/16
AYES: Beall, Cannella, Allen, Galgiani, Leyva, McGuire,
Mendoza, Roth, Wieckowski
NOES: Bates, Gaines
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-19, 5/9/16 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Single-user restrooms
SOURCE: California NOW
Equality California
Transgender Law Center
DIGEST: This bill requires that all single-user restroom
facilities in businesses, places of public accommodation, and
state and local government agencies be identified as all-gender
facilities.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Requires every public agency that conducts an establishment
serving or open to the public and equipped with restrooms
intended for public use to make those restrooms available to
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the public free of cost or charge.
2)Requires publicly and privately owned sports and entertainment
arenas, stadiums, community and convention halls, specialty
event centers, amusement facilities, and ski resorts to be
equipped with sufficient temporary or permanent restrooms to
meet the needs of the public at peak hours. For facilities
owned or occupied by the state, the State Building Standards
Commission must adopt standards to enforce this requirement.
For other facilities, the Office of the State Architect must
adopt standards. Standards must conform to the State Plumbing
Code and be published in the State Building Standards Code.
3)Specifies, by regulation, formulas for determining the number
of restrooms that must be made available in public and private
facilities based on the number of occupants the facility was
designed to accommodate.
This bill:
1)Requires that, beginning March 1, 2017, all single-user toilet
facilities in business establishments, places of public
accommodation, or state or local government agencies be
identified as all-gender facilities and designated for use by
single occupants, families, and people who require assistance.
2)Defines "single-user toilet facilities" as those with no more
than one water closet and one urinal that have a locking
mechanism controlled by the user.
3)Authorizes inspectors, building officials, and other local
officials responsible for code enforcement to check businesses
and places of public accommodation for compliance with this
requirement as part of their inspections.
Comments
1)Purpose. Current law requires public and private facilities
to maintain a sufficient number of restrooms to meet the needs
of the public. According to the author, however, gender-based
restroom restrictions create problems of convenience,
fairness, and safety for countless individuals and undermine
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the applicability and intent of current law. The author
emphasizes that this burden is disproportionately experienced
by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
community, women, and parents or caretakers of dependents of a
different gender. The author states that the goal of this
bill is to eliminate the fears and frustration that many
people experience in restrooms on a daily basis by designating
single-user bathrooms as "all gender."
2)Scope. This bill applies to restroom facilities with one
toilet and/or urinal and one sink, with a door that the user
can lock. These restrooms accommodate one user, and possibly
one caregiver, at a time. The debate over how transgender
individuals should be accommodated in multiuser restrooms is
currently a major national policy issue, particularly with
respect to school settings, so it is important to be clear
that this bill does not apply to bathrooms with multiple
stalls that can be used by multiple individuals at one time.
Additionally, this bill does not require that single-user
restrooms be installed or constructed where none currently
exist. As the author states, "Compliance with the bill is a
matter of adjusting a sign on a restroom door." The bill
gives inspectors the authority to enforce this requirement,
but it does not require them to do so.
3)Keeping people safe. The most obvious benefit of this bill is
that it protects transgender and gender non-conforming
individuals from harassment and violence. Using a public
restroom is inherently risky for these individuals: In a 2013
survey of people who identify as transgender or gender
non-conforming, 70% of respondents reported being denied
access to or verbally harassed or physically assaulted in
public restrooms. By removing "male" and "female"
designations from single-user restrooms, this bill would
separate the routine, daily act of using public bathrooms from
the personal matter of defining and declaring one's gender
identity, allowing transgender and gender non-conforming
people to maintain their privacy - and, by extension, their
safety. While this bill does not guarantee that all-gender
bathrooms will be available in all cases, it does de-gender
public facilities where the barriers to doing so are lowest.
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4)Supporting caregivers - and evening out the lines.
Transgender and gender non-conforming people are not the only
groups that benefit from de-gendering single-user bathrooms.
Gender-restricted bathrooms pose a dilemma for parents with
differently gendered children, as well as for other caregivers
assisting people of a different gender. Supporters of this
bill note that people in this situation often have no choice
but to break a social norm. Making single-occupancy restrooms
available to all genders makes public bathrooms more
accessible to families, children, the elderly, and people with
disabilities. The author notes that it also helps address the
problem of inadequate facilities for women - and the
resultant, widely observed disparity in wait times for men's
and women's restrooms.
5)No new signage regulations required. The California Building
Code (CBC) requires only that restroom doors be marked with
one of three geometric symbols to indicate whether they are
intended for use by men, women, or all genders. Most of the
information typically displayed on restroom signs -including
the side-by-side male and female figures used to denote unisex
facilities - exceeds these requirements. The bill explicitly
states that its new requirement can be met by signage that
complies with the CBC. No adjustments to the CBC are
necessary for implementation of this bill.
6)Other cities and states. If passed, this bill would be the
first of its kind to be adopted at the state level; however,
it is not without precedent. Several cities have turned to
single-user bathrooms as a means of promoting equality for the
transgender community and increasing bathroom accessibility
across the board. Austin, New York, Philadelphia, Santa Fe,
Seattle, and Washington, D.C. have adopted provisions
requiring single-occupancy bathrooms to be labeled for
all-gender use. In California, the city of West Hollywood has
mandated gender-nonspecific single-user bathrooms since 2014;
Berkeley, Cathedral City, and San Francisco have also adopted
similar measures. A January 2016 article in Time magazine
notes that more than 150 U.S. colleges and universities have
also instituted such policies, including the entire University
of California system. The United States Department of Labor's
Occupational Safety and Health Administration has listed
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gender-nonspecific single-occupancy restrooms as a best
practice in the workplace since 2015.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified8/9/16)
California NOW (co-source)
Equality California (co-source)
Transgender Law Center (co-source)
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Civil Liberties Union
Anti-Defamation League
City of West Hollywood
HP Inc.
National Association of Social Workers
PayPal
SacLEGAL
Salesforce
San Francisco Unified School District
San Mateo County Board of Supervisors
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
The Secular Coalition for California
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/9/16)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-19, 5/9/16
AYES: Alejo, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta,
Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chiu, Chu,
Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier,
Cristina Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray,
Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Levine,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Nazarian,
O'Donnell, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,
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Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Weber, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NOES: Achadjian, Travis Allen, Bigelow, Brough, Dahle,
Gallagher, Grove, Harper, Jones, Lackey, Linder, Mathis,
Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson, Steinorth, Wagner, Waldron,
Wilk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Chávez, Beth Gaines, Eduardo Garcia, Hadley,
Mayes, Olsen
Prepared by:Sarah Carvill / T. & H. / (916) 651-4121
8/10/16 15:53:12
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