Searching for a bathroom?

On May 15 of this year, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) signed into law the Carolina Student Physical Privacy Act (House Bill 4756). The law requires all public schools, including colleges and universities, to designate bathrooms and changing facilities based on sex.

According to the law, sex “means a person’s biological sex, either male or female, as observed or clinically verified at birth.” It essentially equates any notion of gender with biological sex.

All students, faculty and staff members of any publicly funded school must use the designated bathroom or changing facility that corresponds to their sex, as defined by the law.

Schools could lose up to 25 percent of their state funding if they allow a student, faculty or staff member to use a bathroom based on their gender identity.

According to Executive Director Jace Woodrum of the ACLU of South Carolina, “Our lawmakers have a responsibility to protect all students, including transgender youth.”

The statement continues in a press release issued by the state ACLU, “These callous acts by our state lawmakers do not reflect the values and priorities of South Carolinians who believe that all students, including transgender students, should have a fair chance to succeed.”

The bill was originally sponsored by state Rep. Tommy Pope (R), along with 60 other state House Republicans. “It is in no way set out to discriminate against any group or class of people,” Pope told the news department of Columbia television station WIS, “It’s to protect the privacy of all, and we want to respect that.”

The so-called “bathroom bill” became a rallying cry for several Republican candidates for various state offices during the recent primary election cycle, and is no doubt going to be a part of the general election campaigns of multiple Republican candidates.

Most reporting often overlooks the very real effect and resultant struggles of transgender students. Finding a bathroom in which a transgender student can feel comfortable has become something short of impossible.

From a story published June 12 by one of South Carolina’s major news outlets, Elliot Naddell, a transgender student at the University of South Carolina (USC), described the signing of the bill into law as being “put on a urinary leash.”

Having to spend the time necessary to find a “legal” bathroom is a burden now placed on transgender students at state-supported educational facilities.

Naddell, in response to the law’s requirement of “a single-user restroom” — generally defined as a bathroom with a lockable door and one toilet and sink — said finding such a bathroom in the University’s 43 campus buildings can take some time. “It takes a lot of time, thought and effort out of my day,” he said.

Clemson University, Winthrop University and the upstate’s technical colleges provide single-user bathrooms, but finding them might be difficult. Campus maps, if available, generally indicate their location.

The University of North Carolina Charlotte provides a map and written directions for locating single-user bathrooms on its campus.

USC, however, removed its online map of single-user bathrooms. The College Fix reported that “a university spokesman said a ‘revised version’ would be put up at some point.”

Winthrop Professor of Political Science Scott Huffmon in a commentary on the April 2025 Winthrop Poll, summed up the issue saying, “Whether it be the bathroom, locker room or doctor’s waiting room, South Carolinians are generally resistant to allowing transgender individuals in.”