'Common sense': Top red state official rallies behind governor signing 'bathroom bill' into law

EXCLUSIVE: Ohio's Republican lieutenant governor is defending his state's recent enactment of a "bathroom bill" preventing biological males from using female bathrooms and says it is part of a cultural shift in the country where Americans are uniting on the issue.

"It's a sad situation that in this time in life that we actually need to pass a law that says that boys should go to boys' bathrooms and girls should go to girls' bathrooms," Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told Fox News Digital.

"But that indeed is the case because we have colleges and some high schools where they blurred the lines. And we need to make sure that there are safe places, particularly for young women, to go to the bathroom, be in a locker room, be in a safe place," Husted said. "And it's truly unbelievable that we had to pass a law to guarantee that. It's just hard to believe that there are adults in this world who think it would be OK for boys, biological boys, to be in girls' locker rooms."

Husted was reacting to news that Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the Protect All Students Act, dubbed the "bathroom bill," after the state Senate passed the bill 24-7 on a party-line vote.

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Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told Fox News Digital that Ohio's bathroom bill is "common sense." (Getty Images)

The bill applies to public K-12 schools and institutions of higher education. It requires schools to designate separate bathrooms, locker rooms and overnight accommodations "for the exclusive use" of either males and females, based on one’s gender assigned at or near birth, in both school buildings and facilities used for a school-sponsored event.

Husted told Fox News Digital the bill represents "common sense."

"People really are just shocked that anyone thinks it's OK that you would have a bathroom, that a biological male could go into a female bathroom and that you could have a locker room where a biological male could go into a female locker room," Husted said. 

"It's just common sense in most people if you go around Ohio. That's what everybody's going to say to you is like, how can this really be? How can a high school do this? Well, I can assure them that I know that is indeed the case because the high school that my own daughters attend has bathrooms that boys and girls are allowed to be in at the same time," he continued. "They have non-gendered bathrooms."

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"That was something that the community fought against, that the school board then filed lawsuits so they could get variances to the building code to build bathrooms like this. And despite all of that opposition, they still went forward with it. But now we have a new law. We have a law in the state of Ohio that will protect against those kinds of things from happening."

Ohio became the 12th state to pass an iteration of a bathroom bill and while critics like the ACLU and LGBT activist groups have voiced opposition and suggested they will challenge the law in court, Husted told Fox News Digital he is confident the bill will withstand any legal challenge.

"It's on solid legal ground," Husted said. "They went through the hearing process, went through the process of addressing all those questions before drafting the bill and passing it and sending it to the governor's desk."

"I'm 100% confident that this will stand any legal scrutiny… I want to reiterate this. It is unfortunate that we need to pass a law because the adults in the lives of these children and young women should be clearly standing up for them. They shouldn't, we shouldn't have to pass a law. This is common sense," Husted continued.

Husted told Fox News Digital the bill is "about protecting the privacy of girls" and "trying to make sure that they have safe places to be" and said Americans across the United States, of both parties, are starting to unite as part of a "cultural shift" on the issue of protecting biological girls in schools and in sports. 

"There absolutely was," Husted said about the cultural shift. "Look, that was part of the last election that was run and there were hundreds of millions of dollars across the country in the presidential and congressional races spent on that. Donald Trump or Republicans would stand for you and not ‘they/them.'"

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Gov. Mike DeWine speaks during a news conference, Dec. 29, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"We all saw the ads. We all know that they were part of the conversation this last election, that people don't believe that biological men should play women's sports. They don't believe that biological men should be in women's locker rooms or bathrooms," Husted said. 

"That was clearly one of the major issues that divided Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are standing up for those protections. And I believe that you're starting to hear even Democrats say, ‘Hey, maybe we ought to rethink this. Maybe we're a bit out of line with this,’" he concluded. "And so I hope that in blue states that they can demonstrate that they want to protect women's sports, they want to protect women in the privacy of bathrooms, in locker rooms. And this is exactly what I hope we'll see across the country."

Fox News Digital's Michael Dorgan contributed to this report