Governor signs bills regulating transgender bathroom use and requiring obscenity appeal process

South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden’s latest batch of bill signings includes one prohibiting transgender people from using public restrooms or changing rooms aligned with their gender identity, and another one requiring public schools and libraries to have appeal processes in place for decisions about obscene materials.

The bathroom bill requires state-owned properties and other public entities, such as schools, to designate multi-occupancy changing rooms, restrooms or sleeping quarters exclusively for females or males.

The legislation defines “female” as “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization,” and has a similar definition for “male” referencing “the reproductive system that produces, transports, and utilizes sperm for fertilization.”

The bill empowers people who encounter “a member of the opposite sex in a restroom or changing room” to seek a court order against allowing it. A complaint would have cause for legal action if a public entity provided permission for a transgender person to use a bathroom matching their gender identity or failed to take reasonable steps to prohibit it.

The library bill started as an attempt to repeal the affirmative defense for libraries, schools, museums and universities against charges of distributing obscene material to children. Legislators supporting that version of the bill alleged that children are being exposed to pornographic books available at schools and public libraries.

A wave of opposition to the legislation resulted in a wholesale amendment. That version, which ultimately passed, converted the bill into a requirement that school and public libraries have appeal processes in place for people who disagree with determinations about what does or doesn’t constitute obscene material that should be inaccessible to children.

Rhoden has signed 154 bills and vetoed one so far. The annual legislative session is over accept for a day on March 31 for lawmakers to consider his vetoes.