Lakewood state senator leads charge against Ohio bathroom bill
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By Andrew Tobias | Signal Statehouse
State Sen. Nickie Antonio of Lakewood and other Democrats in the Ohio Senate gave a forceful defense of their party’s stance on transgender rights this week after majority Republicans approved a bathroom bill for state schools and universities.
The bill would require K-12 schools and colleges to designate bathrooms and locker rooms for single-sex use based on students’ sex assigned at birth. The bill passed 23-7, with all Republicans voting “yes” and Democrats voting “no.” It now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine, who soon will decide whether or not to sign it into law.
The vote offered an early example in Ohio of how Democrats may approach LGBTQ issues following the Nov. 5 election. Before the election, Republicans hammered Sen. Sherrod Brown and other vulnerable Democrats on transgender issues.
Since then, some Democrats have suggested backing off of defending transgender rights to try to broaden the party’s appeal, particularly among minority and working-class voters who tend to be more socially conservative. Polling commissioned by Ideastream Public Media, WKYC and Signal Ohio found a majority of Northeast Ohio voters surveyed, including a significant number of Democrats, support the Republican position. LGBTQ advocates have said transgender-related issues are misunderstood by the public unless they have a personal connection.
But Antonio, who in 2010 became the first openly gay person elected to the state legislature, said Senate Democrats didn’t privately debate the bill’s political merits ahead of the vote. Rather, their discussion focused on how they viewed it as morally wrong.
“We are not going to kick transgender people to the curb and say, well, you’re just dragging us down,” Antonio told Signal Statewide.
During the debate on the floor of the Ohio Senate on Thursday before the vote on the transgender bathroom bill, Republican senators said the election results reinforce that public opinion is on their side.
“Ohioans and Americans … don’t want boys in girls’ sports, they don’t want boys in girls’ locker rooms. They don’t want girls in boys’ bathrooms. It’s for the safety of the kids. And this message was sent loud and clear last week during the national election,” said state Sen. Kristina Roegner, a Hudson Republican.
But Democrats said they view the matter as a civil rights issue.
Antonio said she’s previously resisted private calls to remove the “T” from an LGBTQ nondiscrimination bill that a coalition of gay-rights groups and businesses have tried to pass unsuccessfully for years.
“There has been an effort to segment them off because they are the most marginalized, the most vulnerable, the most misunderstood,” Antonio said of transgender people. “That doesn’t mean we should do it. That means a lot more work has to happen for people to understand rather than malign them.”
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