Oklahoma colleges and public schools would be prohibited from forcing female students to room with or share intimate spaces with “transgender women”—men who identify as women—under legislation easily approved by the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

House Bill 3242, by state Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, declares that “no student shall be required to share sleeping quarters with a member of the opposite sex, unless such persons are members of the same family,” at any overnight event sponsored by a K-12 school.

The bill also mandates that any area where students must change clothes, such as locker rooms, must be “separate, private areas designated for use by persons based on their sex.”

“This legislation is rooted, Mister Speaker, in a fundamental responsibility we hold as lawmakers to protect the safety, dignity, and privacy of all Oklahomans, especially in the most private, vulnerable places,” said Hasenbeck, R-Elgin. “This act seeks to clarify common-sense protections that ensure access to sex-specific spaces: locker rooms, restrooms, showers, and private sleeping facilities that should be aligned with a person’s biological sex, not self-declared gender identity. This bill acknowledges an enduring and evident truth: That biological differences exist, that they matter, especially in places where privacy, safety, and personal vulnerability intersect.”

HB 3242 requires state colleges to “designate each multi-occupancy restroom, changing room, and sleeping quarters for the exclusive use of females, or males,” based on biological sex.

“No individual shall enter a restroom or changing room that is designated for females or males unless he or she is a member of the designated sex,” the legislation states.

The bill contains exemptions for custodial service, medical emergencies, and similar events.

HB 3242 also requires state colleges and universities that provide housing to “provide students the option to be housed only with persons of the same sex.”

If a school or college forces students to share intimate spaces with members of the opposite sex, the student would have a cause of action and could sue the university or school under the provisions of HB 3242.

In recent years, female students have found themselves forced to share intimate spaces with male individuals who self-identify as women.

Former San Jose State University volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser has alleged that an official at the university encouraged her to share an apartment with former teammate Blaire Fleming without informing her that Fleming was a male who identified as a “transgender female.”

“I’m openly changing in front of this person, thinking that it’s a woman, and … I could have had the chance to take myself out of that situation and at least go to a different room and request to be switched to another room and didn’t,” Slusser told Fox News.

Slusser also shared hotel rooms with Fleming during away games, reportedly at the request of Fleming, before team members learned that Fleming was male.

Democratic lawmakers objected to HB 3242, arguing it harms transgender-identifying individuals by denying them access to the sex-specific facilities of their choosing.

“A trans man is someone whose birth gender is going to be listed as female,” said state Rep. Michelle McCane, D-Tulsa. “So, by your bill, they would need to be housed in sleeping quarters for women.”

Democrats also claimed there is no way to tell the difference between men and women without a strip search.

“At some point, with legislation like this, there’s going to have to be a test of some kind,” said state Rep. Trish Ranson, D-Stillwater. “And the idea of subjecting women, and men too, to a pantie check, I think goes beyond what we should really be doing here in the Legislature.”

Ranson claimed the legislation puts “transgender” individuals’ lives “at risk,” and dismissed the idea that men might claim to identify as transgender to access female-only spaces and target women. She argued against the bill’s provisions barring men who identify as transgender from accessing shelters for abused women who are escaping domestic violence.

“I have never been … afraid of a trans individual,” Ranson said. “No. So the idea that there is that threat that I could be attacked by a trans individual—no.”

But Hasenbeck noted there have been numerous instances where men have assaulted women in private spaces after the man used self-proclaimed “gender identity” to gain access.

“Across the country, and even globally, we’re seeing clear patterns of abuse where bad actors exploit these policies under the guise of gender identity,” Hasenbeck said.

She noted that in 2022 two female students in the Edmond school district in Oklahoma were assaulted in the bathroom by a male student who identified as a transgender female.

In Loudon County, Virginia, a female student was assaulted in a school bathroom by a male who identified as a transgender woman.

In Wisconsin, four 14-year-old freshmen girls were exposed to the fully nude body of an 18-year-old senior male in a high-school locker room after the male self-identified as a transgender woman.

In New York’s Rikers Island prison, a male inmate who self-identified as a transgender woman was housed with female inmates. He was eventually convicted of attempted rape of a female inmate.

“These are not theoretical concerns, Mister Speaker,” Hasenbeck said. “These are real incidents with real victims and many of them being young girls whose safety and dignity were compromised by the policies that protect identity over biological reality.”

HB 3242 passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on a 74-17 vote that broke along party lines with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed. The bill now proceeds to the Oklahoma Senate.