Yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the School Success and Opportunity Act (AB1266), ensuring that transgender students can fully access all school activities, sports teams, programs and facilities – including sex- segregated bathrooms and locker rooms – that match their gender identity.

The Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Coalition, which is working in Massachusetts for the passage of the Transgender Equal Access Bill, issued the following comments in response to the enactment of the California Law:

“We applaud Governor Brown and the state of California for taking this critical step to ensure that transgender youth have their gender identities affirmed and respected at school, and that they have the same opportunities as the rest of their classmates to play sports, participate in physical education classes, school clubs and attend field trips,” said Mason Dunn, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. “Ensuring that transgender students can access sex-segregated facilities and programs consistent with their gender identity is simple and fair, and increasingly becoming the norm, as we saw in Massachusetts when the Department of Elementary and Secondary education released its guidance on supporting transgender students in the Commonwealth’s schools.”

“But while Massachusetts has taken important steps to treat transgender students fairly in our public schools, it remains that transgender young people and adults can still be refused access to public places like hospitals, restaurants, homeless shelters, nursing homes and supermarkets,” added Dunn. “Our legislature can correct this injustice by passing the Equal Access Bill so that transgender residents of the Commonwealth have the same access to vital services and public spaces their fellow residents enjoy.”

Read more about the Coalition and their full statement here.