LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas lawmaker is proposing an expansion of the state’s indecent exposure law in a move that opponents say would target transgender people’s use of bathrooms.
Republican Rep. Bob Ballinger’s bill would make it a crime for people to knowingly expose their sex organs to someone of the opposite sex in a public place under circumstances that are likely to cause alarm.
Ballinger says the measure was needed to protect children in situations such as when a father takes his daughter into a men’s restroom. It would make it a crime for the men to deliberately expose themselves to the child.
But American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas legal counsel Holly Dickson says the bill really targets transgender people.