Kansas woman and son with disabilities told to leave restroom, as controversial law looms
Karen Wild said she and her adult son with disabilities were asked to leave a library restroom, amid concern about a new state law on bathroom use.
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Kansas woman and son with disabilities told to leave restroom, as controversial law looms
Andrew Bahl
Topeka Capital-Journal
Published: 10:51 a.m. CT May 23, 2023 Updated: 10:52 a.m. CT May 23, 2023
"Karen Wild, right, said she and her son Ellis Dunville, who is on the autism spectrum and is nonverbal, were asked to leave a restroom in the Wichita Public Library on Saturday."
A Kansas woman said she was asked to leave the restroom at a library in the state's largest city while accompanying her adult son who is on the autism spectrum, just weeks after the state enacted a law that could ban individuals from using restrooms and other facilities that don't align with their sex assigned at birth.
Karen Wild said she makes a trip to the central branch of the Wichita Public Library every week and has done so for years, a way of meeting up with Wild's mother, who lives 45 minutes away and helps take care of her son, Ellis Dunville, who is on the autism spectrum, has a seizure disorder and is nonverbal.
Never once in that time, she said, have any library staff or patrons objected to her bring her son into the women's restroom.
But shortly after entering with her son on Saturday, Wild said, a male security guard approached the restroom and informed her that Dunville couldn't be there. He walked away, she said, once it became clear another patron was using the restroom but that person also objected to her son's presence.
Minutes later, a female library employee entered and said the library had policies related to the matter and asked if the family could make use of the building's gender-neutral restroom, which Wild said she was unaware of.
More:Overriding veto, Kansas is first in the nation to enact sweeping anti-transgender measure
Kansas woman and nonverbal son kicked out of women's restroom
Library staff didn't make explicit reference to Senate Bill 180, the law enacted earlier this year, but Wild said she recalled the new measure during the exchange and believed it helped prompt the incident.At the very least, she added, the ongoing controversy about restroom usage nationally seemed responsible for the outcry.
"There isn't anything I can think of that has changed except that they heard about that law and decided they needed to be emboldened by it somehow," Wild said. "I can't explain it any other way."
Sean Jones, a spokesperson for the library, confirmed the incident happened but said the restroom policies have not been recently changed.
Instead, he said that the library has "seen a slight uptick in unsafe activities in our library recently — as is the case with most urban libraries and large public spaces — and our staff has been more aware of situations that appear out of the ordinary."
"With this particular situation, it was simply a mishandled customer service moment," Jones said. "Our staff was curious about the situation, and ultimately offered a solution for future uses in the form of telling them of the three family restrooms available at the main library."
Kansas SB 180 passed weeks ago and excludes transgender individuals
The incident comes weeks after the enactment of SB 180, which would strictly define male or female in state law so as to exclude transgender individuals, and says the state could apply those definitions to separate sexes in restrooms, changing rooms, domestic violence shelters, state prisons and other public facilities.It would not only apply to public facilities but also require the state to count people for data-gathering purposes as either male or female based on an individual’s birth sex. The measure would also prevent transgender residents from changing their sex or name on a driver's license or birth certificate.
The impacts of the first-in-the-nation law remain unclear, but its critics raised concerns during the legislative process that its language could apply to individuals outside of the bill's intended scope, such as parents bringing children into the restroom with them for reasons of safety or practicality.
There is no enforcement mechanism outlined in the bill, with top Republican proponents saying it would likely only be enforced if a person was harassing other individuals.
But Wild said she was fearful about the bill's impacts for her family, something she didn't anticipate. Her mother, she said, could hardly be expected to enter the men's restroom with Dunville and her son's caregiver during the workweek is her transgender niece.
"My niece identifies as a woman and then you'd have, in some people's eyes, two men in the woman's bathroom," Wild said. "So I'm not entirely without motivation here, but I did not ever consider that it would be something that would affect me and Ellis when we were out."
Ultimately, she said she had no plans to stop going to the public library, though she said she would begin using the gender neutral restroom there.
"But if there's not a family bathroom, Ellis is going into the bathroom with me," Wild said. "And short of a cop arresting me, that's going to be what's going to happen."
his ass old is potty trained, if not she a trash parent