Transgender people in Massachusetts can't be prohibited from using public restrooms and changing rooms on the basis of their anatomical sex, including in churches, according to guidance on a new anti-discrimination law in the state.
"This legislation affirms the Commission's long-standing recognition of gender identity rights previously enforced through sex discrimination claims," the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination says in a document produced Sept. 1.
On Oct. 1, "all persons, regardless of gender identity, shall have the right to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation."
Public accommodations are defined as "any place, whether licensed or unlicensed, which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public," the agency said.
"Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public," the commission noted.
Matt Sharp of religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Caller that the law violates First Amendment rights, and that it is wrong to claim that hosting a public "spaghetti supper" is enough to claim "public accommodations."
Amid a contentious debate earlier this year over privacy issues, language adding that those who claim a false gender identity for an "improper purpose" was added to the measure before it passed the state legislature. Critics claimed the law wasn't needed and would be abused.
"There will be people out there who seek to abuse this law — there are pedophiles, there are rapists, there are bad people in his world," state Rep. Shawn Dooley, a Republican from Norfolk, said during legislative debate. The Massachusetts Family Institute, which rallied opponents of the measure earlier this year, and is advocating a repeal at the ballot box in 2018.
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