KUAR | By Tess Vrbin / Arkansas Advocate

The Arkansas House will consider a bill denounced by advocates for transgender Arkansans on Wednesday, the final day of the 2025 legislative session.

Senate Bill 486 would allow Arkansans to sue for damages if they encounter someone in a bathroom, changing room, shelter or correctional facility who does not align with the “designated sex” of the restroom. The bill narrowly passed the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Tuesday after 15 people spoke against it and no member of the public spoke for it.

“The intention here is to make it so that trans people cannot exist in public,” said Maricella Garcia, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families’ race equity director. “If you cannot use the restroom, you cannot go out in public.”

Bill regulating transgender Arkansans’ bathroom use heads to House despite public pushback

*Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate*
Family Council attorney Stephanie Nichols (left) and Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, present Senate Bill 486 to the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Monday, April 14, 2025.

KUAR | By Daniel Breen

A bill restricting bathroom usage in public schools is one step closer to becoming law in Arkansas.

House Bill 1156 won approval from the Arkansas Senate Monday on a party-line vote. The bill would require students to use bathrooms and changing facilities aligning with the sex on their birth certificate, and prohibit students from sharing overnight sleeping accommodations with members of the opposite sex.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, said the bill’s discriminatory nature means it likely wouldn’t hold up in court.

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-03-13/arkansas-lawmakers-send-school-bathroom-bill-to-house-for-final-approval