Samuel Case, FISM News

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Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law on Tuesday barring transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that matches their gender identity in public and charter schools, becoming the fourth state to do so. 

“The Governor has said she will sign laws that focus on protecting and educating our kids, not indoctrinating them and believes our schools are no place for the radical left’s woke agenda,” Alexa Henning, Sanders’ spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Arkansas isn’t going to rewrite the rules of biology just to please a handful of far-left advocates.”

Alabama, Oklahoma, and Tennessee have similar laws on the books, but Oklahoma and Tennessee are facing legal challenges. 

The law will take effect 90 days after Arkansas’ current legislative session on April 7 and will be in place for the 2023-24 school year. 

“Each child in our schools has a right to privacy and to feel safe and to feel comfortable in the bathroom they need to go to,” said bill sponsor, Republican Rep. Mary Bentley earlier in the year. 

The bill also requires schools to provide accommodations for transgender students, such as single-use bathrooms, although critics say it doesn’t give schools enough funding for these accommodations. 

Arkansas is currently considering a bill that would criminalize the use of a public restroom or changing room “of the opposite sex while knowing a minor of the opposite sex is present.”

At least 17 bills that address who can use bathrooms have been introduced in 11 states so far this year.