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Tennessee lawmakers have rejected a measure that would've restricted which bathroom transgender students can use, apparently putting an end to the debate for the year.
A Senate panel on Wednesday declined to take up a proposal that would have required transgender students to use the bathroom of the sex on their birth certificate.
Lawmakers have shown little interest in debating the issue this year. Many prefer to let school districts set rules for transgender students' bathroom use on a case-by-case basis.
Even before the Senate Education Committee rejected the proposal this week, its House sponsor was promising to rework it.
But Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project says state lawmakers seem to prefer to just lay the issue to rest.
"They don't want Tennessee's economy wrecked and a target to be painted on [our] back like North Carolina," he says.
That state has been the subject of a nationwide boycott since lawmakers there approved a transgender bathroom bill.
Legislative staffers predict something similar would happen in Tennessee if lawmakers here were to pass a bathroom bill. They also warn the state would jeopardize more than $1 billion each year in federal education funding.
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