Transgender Accommodations Bill Heads to Governor After Month-Long Delay

A legislative committee has ironed out the differences between Senate and House versions of a highly publicized transgender accommodations bill, sending a final version toward the governor based on a much-debated bill the Massachusetts House passed more than a month earlier.

After a final, largely procedural votes in both chambers, the bill will go to Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who has said he'll sign. That puts Massachusetts in a singular position as states elsewhere fight similar guidelines on public school facilities.

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The Massachusetts bill prohibits discrimination against transgender men and women in public places, and protects the ability to choose a restroom or other public facility that matches one's sexual identity, regardless of anatomical sex.

Before they passed the bill in June, state representatives engaged in hours of debate as protesters and supporters watched from the gallery and chanted or cheered outside.

Supporters cast the bill as the culmination of Massachusetts' first-in-the-nation gender identity protections, passed in 2011. Opponents pushed for steeper punishments for those they claimed might manipulate the law to prey upon people, particularly children.

The bill passed 116-36 in the House, but spent the past month in conference committee, where members of both chambers haggled over its final form. Ultimately, the House version, which requires additional guidelines regarding those who use false gender identity claims for "improper purposes," won out Wednesday.

Baker could receive the bill yet this week. If it passes as expected, the law would take effect in October, the Associated Press reports.