Over the past few months, anti-transgender “bathroom bills” have been making their way through the legislative process in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas, and new ones have just shown up in Missouri. State-based organizations and individuals on the ground have been working hard to defeat these bills, which could have very real, harmful consequences for transgender and gender nonconforming people.

In Kentucky, this hard work has paid off. On March 24th, Kentucky’s “Bathroom Bully Bill,” which would bar transgender students from using the restroom of their gender identity, failed.

Senate Bill 76, which was introduced by Senator C.B. Embry Jr., would have required schools to “provide separate, private areas designated for use by students based on their biological sex.” The bill proposed allowing students to sue their school for up to $2,500 each time they saw a student who appeared to have a different gender presentation in a facility "designated for use by the biological sex of the aggrieved student.”.

The bill was initially introduced to the Senate Education Committee and, with bi-partisan opposition, failed. But less than a week later, the committee re-voted 8-1 to move the bill forward to the full Senate. Although the Senate then voted 27-9 in favor of the bill, Kentucky's Democratically-controlled House refused to hear the bill. In a last-ditch effort to keep the bill alive, Sen. Embry filed an amendment to House Bill 236, a bill that would give school districts a choice to let a high school student participate on the committee that screens candidates for superintendent jobs. The amendment mirrored SB 76, as it would forbid transgender students from using school bathrooms designated for the opposite "biological sex".

Throughout the bills progress, the Federation’s own state-based member organization the Fairness Campaign and their Fairness Coalition partners were working tirelessly to defeat the bill. They held rallies and encouraged supporters to contact their legislators and tell them to oppose this harmful bill. And when the bill was snuck in as an amendment to HB 236, they stood with students in a rally against the anti-LGBT amendment. Luckily Senators saw how unrelated this amendment was and stripped it from the bill, but not without it and another unrelated amendment regarding students’ religious freedom of speech upsetting HB 236’s chance of passing.

Chris Hartman, Executive Director of the Fairness Campaign, was committed to seeing this “Bathroom Bully Bill” defeated.

“A cadre of Kentucky Senate Republicans along with the Family Foundation tried time and time again to pass this unnecessary, mean spirited, and discriminatory legislation to no avail. We're proud that Fairness supporters, students, and legislators from both sides of the aisle stood strongly on the side of transgender kids in our commonwealth. Kentucky--it's a state of Fairness!”

This victory was hard-fought, and offers inspiration to continue fighting against the other “bathroom bills” currently in Florida, Texas, and Missouri. But these state groups need your support. You can take action by contacting legislators and telling them why they shouldn’t support an anti-transgender bill.

• Click here to help win equality in Florida.
• Click here for Equality Texas’s action alert to contact your legislator.
• Learn more about Missouri’s bills from PROMO.

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