California lawmakers set to vote on gender-neutral restrooms

California lawmakers were set to vote Monday on a proposal to require all single-person public restrooms to be gender neutral, hours after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory sued the federal government to defend that state's law requiring transgender people to use the restroom matching the sex on their birth certificate.

The Justice Department later responded by suing North Carolina, seeking a court order declaring the law discriminatory and unenforceable.

In California, Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco aims to help transgender people, parents with kids of different genders and adults caring for aging parents.

His proposal would apply to all businesses in California as well as state and local government buildings, asking inspectors and officials who enforce building code to check restroom signs for compliance. A state association of health officers removed its opposition to the bill after Ting removed them from that list.

Discussion on the bill was brief before it passed a fiscal committee earlier this year, according to transcripts provided by Digital Democracy.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has long considered restroom access a safety issue and in June 2015 named gender-neutral stalls a best business practice.

Ting has said his proposal would eliminate "the fears and frustration that many people experience in public restrooms on a daily basis."

"We must change our focus from segregating access to equalizing access to this solitary room," Ting said in a legislative report last month. "This will enable everyone to get in and out on the same terms."

If approved in the California Assembly, AB1732 would also need to pass out of the state Senate before going to Gov. Jerry Brown.

The Democratic governor signed AB1266 in 2013, allowing public school students to participate in sports and use restrooms of their gender identity, regardless of their sex listed on school record.

Kansas lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow students to seek a $2,500 redress if they encounter a transgender person in a restroom that does not correspond with their anatomy at birth.

In the North Carolina case, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday the state's law requiring transgender people to use the public restroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate amounts to "state-sponsored discrimination" aimed at "a problem that doesn't exist."

Billions in state aid for North Carolina are at stake in that dispute, which has triggered boycotts and cancellations aimed at getting the state to repeal the measure.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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