Your state has a law on bathrooms and trans kids? Officials may not know how it will be enforced

When North Dakota restricted what bathrooms transgender students can use in public schools and universities this year, the school district in the state’s largest city promised to ignore the new rules. A Republican legislator then called for confiscating its state funding, but the law doesn’t include that possibility.

The defiance in Fargo shows that it’s not exactly clear how bathroom laws will play out in local communities after being enacted in at least 10 states with Republican-controlled legislatures.

Kansas’ GOP attorney general planned to discuss his state’s law Monday, five days before it was to take effect. His view is likely to be challenged.

Even Florida’s law, allowing the state to threaten the licenses of educators who don’t comply, says a transgender student or staffer must first be asked to leave a restroom and refuse.

Some schools already have gender-neutral bathrooms and changing spaces or allow trans students to use staff restrooms. In others, trans students try to make it through the day without using a restroom.