On the night of a formal dance at their high school, Aiden Zapisek, who identifies as non-binary and gay, entered a stall in the men’s bathroom. Soon after, a group of boys walked in and surrounded the stall door.

With their heart pounding, Zapisek froze as the boys banged on the door while yelling, moaning and throwing things into the stall.

“It was definitely hard to come around after that happened,” Zapisek said. “I’m okay with it now. It sucks that it happened, but screw them.”

Now a freshman digital media production major, Zapisek said they hope to be a voice for non-binary, trans and gender-nonconforming people who don’t feel safe using public restrooms.

When they first heard about House Bill 183, Ohio’s latest bill that would require K-12 and college students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their sex assigned at birth, all they could think about were students who have had similar experiences while trying to use the bathroom.

“As somebody who is non-binary and does use a male restroom, I’m not extremely comfortable with it,” Zapisek said. “I’ve had men bang on doors and be like, ‘Hey, what are you doing in there?’ and just yell and be loud, and it’s very uncomfortable. So, I understand if somebody feels comfortable in one bathroom over the other, or if they identify as female and want to go in a female bathroom, they should be able to do that and vice versa.”

The House Higher Education Committee approved the bill, which would also ban schools from letting students share overnight accommodations with the opposite biological sex, on April 10.

Ohio House Reps. Beth Lear and Adam Bird, who introduced H.B. 183 last May, did not respond to KentWired’s request for comment.

The bill comes amid a nationwide push to restrict transgender people’s access to public restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities. Similar bills have passed in states such as Utah and have been introduced in Idaho, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa and West Virginia.

Zapisek said one of their trans friends, who lives on campus, said there was a debate over whether they were allowed to use the bathroom on their “female-only” floor because they identify as a trans man. 

“They ended up being able to use the bathroom, but it was a serious dilemma and situation,” Zapisek said. 

For Lauren Vachon, an assistant professor and coordinator of the LGBTQ Studies program, the bathroom debate hits close to home.

Vachon’s trans son, Jeremy, came out in high school and wanted to feel comfortable using the school bathrooms. When Vachon and their son walked into a meeting with the school district to discuss accommodations, they were surprised by the school’s willingness to accommodate. 

The school offered him to use a separate restroom, which made him the most comfortable. While Vachon believed it was a better option, they didn’t feel it was truly equal.

“I felt that ‘use this special bathroom’ was not true, equal access, right?” Vachon said. “I agreed that it was probably best for Jeremy, and he also agreed, but my feelings about it were complicated. Really, I had gone into that meeting with school administrators ready to do battle — but I didn’t have to.”

Vachon has been a professor at Kent State since 2016, and they said they’ve heard from many queer and trans students who are concerned for their safety as H.B. 183 advances.

“The kind of policing of bathrooms that this bill will engender will make it dangerous for these students to use public restrooms on campus,” Vachon said.

However, Bird told the Ohio Capital Journal that H.B. 183 will give Ohioans protections in restrooms.

“Me and my Republican colleagues have heard from constituents all across the state,” Bird said. “They may not have been loud. They may not have been vocal. They may not have come with a sign to the Statehouse, but we are here representing the vast majority of Ohioans who want protections.”

Vachon said they don’t believe the bill will solve Ohioans’ problems, and they said Republican members of the Statehouse are engaging in “performative politics.” They said members are catering to conservative organizations, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, which they said are the machines behind this type of legislation.

“That produces this alignment where all the Republicans in state houses in Ohio and other states feel compelled to introduce these bills that are sometimes almost identical in their wording because they’ve been written by these national groups,” Vachon said. 

One aspect of the bill that Vachon is especially concerned about is its vague enforcement mechanism, which heavily relies on an individual’s biological sex listed on their birth certificate. The bill defines biological sex as “the biological indication of male and female, including sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, without regard to an individual’s psychological, chosen or subjective experience of gender.”

Vachon said that even if queer and transgender students have had their gender markers on their birth certificate changed, it won’t be enough. 

“What’s going to happen to a trans man who has a full beard who’s [going to] have to use the women’s room?” Vachon said. “There’s the other scenario of trans women having to use the men’s room, and that is incredibly unsafe for trans women.”

Research has found that transgender women experience assault about four times higher than cisgender women. The human rights organization GLSEN found in a 2021 Ohio report on the experiences of LGBTQ+ middle and high school students that 42% of trans and non-binary students were stopped from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender, and 36% couldn’t use the locker room aligning with their gender.

If H.B. 183 passes, Vachon said non-binary and trans students should seek out safe bathrooms for themselves, and they said the LGBTQ+ Center maintains a list of where all the universal restrooms are located on campus.

“My advice is for people to seek out safe bathrooms for themselves,” Vachon said. “Kent State is installing quite a few restrooms that will be key if this bill were to become law — the ones that have a single toilet and a sink behind a locked door. Under this bill, those would still be allowed to be considered universal restrooms if they’re like that style.”

Erica Pelz, a faculty member and sophomore sociology student, said the bill is a direct attack on all women. Pelz spoke outside of their role with the university.

“I’m very worried about both trans students and cisgender students who are going to be challenged by people with nefarious intentions who are just trying to go pee,” Pelz said. “‘Prove to me that you should be in the women’s restroom. Prove that you’re really a woman,’ you know?”

As a trans woman, Pelz said LGBTQ+ people and allies should assess their risk before speaking out against H.B. 183 and similar bills.

“If you can tolerate that risk, start calling representatives, start writing letters and be heard,” Pelz said. “When you hear somebody say something that is blatantly untrue about trans folks and bathrooms, correct them and explain why it matters.”

Aden Graves is co-opinion editor. Contact him at [email protected].