OLYMPIA — A bill to repeal a rule allowing people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with drew a substantial crowd at its first and only public hearing last week.

Senate Bill 6443 passed 4-3 through the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. The vote followed party lines with four Republicans approving the measure.

A companion bill in the House has not been scheduled for a committee public hearing.

A person who is transgender has an inner sense of gender identity that is not the same as the sex they were born with.

The Washington State Human Rights Commission created a rule based on a 2006 nondiscrimination law for sexual identity passed by the Legislature. The rule says people must be allowed to use gender-segregated places that match their gender identity.

Several school districts across Snohomish County already have put policies in place for transgender students while others are drafting proposals.

The Senate bill approved Wednesday would prevent the human rights commission from further creating rules concerning gender-segregated locations.

Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, the prime sponsor of the bill, dubbed the rule “men in the women’s locker room.”

“There’s an expectation that parents have with regards of when they take their kids to school of who will use which locker room, who will use which bathroom,” he said to the committee.

He also said the rule could hurt businesses. He called the legislation a compromise since it allowed individual businesses to institute the rule for their business.

Laura Lindstrand, a policy analyst for the Human Rights Commission, said the rule was put in place to clarify the 2006 law.

Backers of the bill said the rule opens doors for sexual predators and human traffickers and that the rule-making process was unsound.

“It’s an attack on our process of democracy. This did not go through a legislative process. This is a group of unelected officials,” said Angela Connelly, president of the Washington Women’s Network. “We need to make sure that everyone is safe and everyone is protected. We need to go back and rethink this.”

The Washington Women’s Network is an advocacy group that walked in the March for Life at the capitol in January.

Paul MacLurg, owner of Thrive Community Fitness in Lacey, said he could lose business because of the rule.

“Before this rule was in place the law allowed me to use my best judgment. Now, I have no good choices, no protection from the law,” he said. “This is not a gender issue. This is common sense, safety, decency and a privacy issue.”

Opponents said repealing the rule would put transgender people, who are at a higher risk of sexual assault than other people, in more danger. They also said the 2006 law has not resulted in problems that backers fear.

“Trans people are already a part of your community. It is understandably easy to fear the unknown, but we must appeal to our better nature and confront fear with facts,” said Jennifer Popkin of Seattle. “Transgender women like me are women. On a personal level I can’t imagine using a men’s bathroom.”

Ryan Trainer of Federal Way said his young daughter is transgender.

“She is who she is and she arrived this way whether we knew it or not,” he told the committee. “She is deserving of respect and protection just like all of the children in Washington state. My transgender child is not a threat, nor will she be when she grows up into a beautiful transgender woman.”

Lindstrand said the commission held four public meetings and one public comment meeting to create the rule.

A question-and-answer document created by the commission said, “The rules do not protect persons who go into a restroom or locker room under false pretenses…The rules do not prohibit asking legitimate questions about a person’s presence in a gender segregated facility.”

This story is part of a series of news reports from the Legislature provided through a reporting internship sponsored by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation. Contact Reporter Izumi Hansen: hansenizumi@gmail.com