It should be clear to anyone with the slimmest of interest in the freedom of human beings to be who they are that there is a well-established organized effort to force all transgender people...but especially the transgender kids...to live as the gender we were assigned at birth.

That's the whole point restricting access to public accommodations like restrooms.

Well, today we find that efforts by those forces have failed in Virginia and Washington.

The Washington state Senate, on a 25-24 vote, has defeated legislation that would have repealed a new rule allowing transgender people to use restrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify.

Thank God the bill died.

--Sen. Ken Ranker (D-Orcas)

Conservative Republican legislators, and allies in such groups as the Family Policy Institute, have made limiting civil rights of transgender teenagers a major objective in this year's session of the Legislature.

SB 6443, sponsored by Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, would have repealed the rule and forbade the Human Rights Commission from again taking up the issue. It cleared committee last week and reached the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Three Republicans from eastern King County derailed the bill: Senators Andy Hill, Steve Litzow, and Joe Fain.

Legislation to create more uncertainty and reduce the rights of any minority does more to divide us than to bring equality.

This provides our state with a powerful opportunity to educate more people about our transgender community members and the struggles and discrimination they already face

--Litzow

One Democratic Senator, Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam voted in favor of the legislation.

It's become so palpable to me, the fear and pain this legislation is creating for so many people just trying to lead their private lives.

--Rep. Brady Walkinshaw (D-Seattle)

The fact that they (Republicans) would allow it to come to the (Senate) floor for a vote makes me question their values as well.

Transgender people aren't some nameless, faceless group. They are our friends and neighbors, our children and our parents. They face tremendous challenges fitting into our society, and we should work to welcome them -- not exclude them.

--Sen. Marko Liias (D-Lynwood)

Of course the bill had supporters.

It looks like the new 'let men in women's bathroom' rule DOES apply to schools. Nice job, Dems. Repeal the rule now or we'll see you in November.

--Rep. Matt Manweller (D-Ellensburg)

In Virginia House Bill 781 would have required transgender students at Virginia public schools to use the restrooms and locker rooms reserved for their sex assigned at birth (what conservatives like to call "biological sex").

H.B.781 "gained wide attention this year after critics suggested it would require school employees to check students’ genitals."

I think this will help protect schools from being sued over the issue of allowing someone of the opposite sex to use the facilities that are designated one way or the other.

This is not about discrimination, this is about privacy.

--Del Mark L. Cole (R-Spotsylvania), the bill's sponsor

The bill would have required local school boards to adopt policies requiring that all restrooms and locker rooms accessible by multiple students be “designated for and only used by students based on their biological sex.” The legislation would have applied to all public buildings owned by the state. Violations would carry a $50 civil penalty.

This has the potential to invite almost vigilante-type action.

--Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, ACLU of Virginia

The ACLU is supporting transgender students Gavin Grimm in his appeal at the 4th Circuit.

You are acting precipitously at a point in time when you will add concern and confusion and difficulty to an already difficult situation.

--Gastañaga

This is a little bit complicated, and I’m not comfortable sending a signal to the courts that we’re making a decision in anticipation of what they may or may not decide.

--Del. Thomas A. "Tag" Greason (R-Loudon)

We can teach our children to be compassionate and tolerant toward one another without forcing young, school-age children into vulnerable interactions with the opposite sex in restrooms and locker rooms.

--Chris Freund, Family Foundation

The bill died in the Republican-controlled committee on a vote of 8-13.

We have not seen the last of this water-closeted hydra, which Slate's Scott Skinner-Thompson labels unconstitutional.

South Dakota has already put forward four anti-trans bills this session.

Courts have already established that the government may not publicly disseminate sensitive, intimate information absent a compelling government interest. The bills being considered by state legislatures flatly violate this constitutional norm by outing transgender people every time they attempt to use the restroom. Lawmakers should reject these bills and permit everyone the ability to pee in peace.

--Skinner-Thompson