The Tennessee bathroom law requires every public school and government-owned building in the state to designate multi-occupancy restrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities for use based on biological sex as listed on a person’s original birth certificate, not gender identity. Officially the Accommodations for All Children Act, it is codified in Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 8, took effect in 2021, and was upheld when a federal judge dismissed the most significant challenge to it in September 2024.
What the Law Requires
The rule is straightforward. In any covered facility with a multi-occupancy restroom, locker room, or changing area, that space must be designated for either male or female use, and a person’s sex for this purpose is what appears on their original birth certificate. A transgender person cannot use the multi-occupancy facility that matches their gender identity in a Tennessee public school or state or local government building.
Single-occupancy restrooms are outside the law entirely. Anyone can use them regardless of sex, and schools are directed to make them available as an accommodation for students who are unwilling or unable to use the multi-occupancy facility designated for their biological sex.1Justia. Tennessee Code 49-2-803 – Reasonable Accommodation Schools are not required to build new restrooms to meet that obligation; they must make existing single-occupancy facilities available.
Tennessee has also preempted local governments from writing around the state standard. A city or county cannot enact or enforce a nondiscrimination ordinance that would give transgender individuals broader restroom access in public accommodations, so local opt-outs are not available.
Where the Law Does Not Reach
The statute covers public schools and government-owned buildings. It does not apply to private businesses, churches, or other private facilities, and it does not touch single-occupancy restrooms anywhere. A private employer or restaurant in Tennessee is free to set its own restroom policy; the state bathroom law is not the source of any obligation there.
Who Is Exempt From Entering the Opposite-Sex Facility
The law recognizes several situations where a person may enter a restroom designated for the opposite sex without violating it:
- Custodial and maintenance workers performing cleaning, repairs, or other facility duties.
- Law enforcement officers, firefighters, and paramedics responding to an emergency or performing official duties.
- A parent or caregiver assisting a young child, an elderly person, or someone with a disability.
The caregiving exception covers everyday reality: a father helping his young daughter, or a home health aide assisting an elderly woman, is not a violation.
How Schools Have to Comply
Public school districts carry the heaviest share of the compliance work. Administrators designate each multi-occupancy restroom and locker room by biological sex, update student handbooks, post signage, and train staff on the requirements. The Tennessee Department of Education provides implementation guidance to districts.2Tennessee Department of Education. Tennessee School Health Laws 2024
The law applies to school employees as well as students. A transgender teacher must use either the restroom matching the sex on their original birth certificate or a single-occupancy facility. Administrators who become aware that someone is using a facility that does not match their biological sex are expected to address it, because a district that lets compliance slip faces both civil liability and the possibility of losing state funds.
Athletic locker rooms follow the same rule as other multi-occupancy facilities. Federal Title IX still requires schools to provide equivalent athletic facilities for male and female teams,3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 1681 – Sex but which locker room a student uses is controlled by biological sex under state law.
Penalties and Lawsuits
No one is arrested for using the wrong restroom. Enforcement is civil, and it points in two directions.
First, any person who is required to share a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility with someone of the opposite biological sex may sue the government entity responsible for the facility. Available remedies include monetary damages and injunctive relief ordering the institution to change its policy.1Justia. Tennessee Code 49-2-803 – Reasonable Accommodation That puts the enforcement burden on individual school boards and government agencies: if they don’t implement the policy, they can be sued by individuals who feel their privacy was violated.
Second, the Tennessee Department of Education can withhold state funds from school districts that repeatedly violate the law. On a first violation, the commissioner may withhold an amount at their discretion. If a district violates the requirement two or more times in a single school year, the commissioner is required to withhold state funds, and the amount increases with each additional violation.2Tennessee Department of Education. Tennessee School Health Laws 2024 For a district on tight margins, that pressure is often more consequential than the threat of a private lawsuit.
Court Challenges
The most significant challenge came from a transgender student identified in court filings as D.H. U.S. District Judge William Campbell initially allowed the case to proceed in 2023 under the Equal Protection Clause while dismissing the Title IX claims. In September 2024, Judge Campbell dismissed the remainder of the lawsuit. He reasoned that the law does not prefer one sex over the other, does not bestow benefits or burdens based on sex, and does not apply one rule for males and another for females. It applies the same biological-sex standard to everyone, and that, in his view, meant it did not deny equal protection.
A separate lawsuit was dropped after the child plaintiffs moved out of state. As of 2026, no active federal court challenge to the law is pending. The dismissal in D.H.’s case was influenced by a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that other Tennessee transgender-related laws “treated the sexes equally.”
How the Law Fits With Federal Policy
For the first few years after the Tennessee law took effect, it appeared to be in tension with the federal Department of Education’s reading of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. That tension has since dissolved.
A 2024 Biden-era Title IX rule that would have defined sex discrimination to include discrimination based on gender identity was blocked in federal court, and the Supreme Court declined in August 2024 to let it take temporary effect while litigation continued. Tennessee was among the states that successfully challenged the rule. On January 20, 2025, an executive order defined “sex” throughout federal policy as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female,” stating that sex “is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.'”4The White House. Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government A follow-up order in February 2025 directed continued compliance with the judicial vacatur of the earlier Title IX rule.5The White House. Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports
Workplace bathrooms are a separate track. In February 2026 the EEOC voted 2-1 to approve a federal-sector decision holding that Title VII permits federal employers to maintain single-sex bathrooms and to exclude transgender employees from opposite-sex facilities.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC Issues Federal Sector Appellate Decision Recognizing the Ability of Federal Agencies to Designate Intimate Spaces in Federal Workplaces by Sex That decision applies only to federal agencies, not to private employers. The 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County held that firing someone based on transgender status violates Title VII, but the majority opinion explicitly declined to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or similar facilities.7Supreme Court of the United States. Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020) For private employers in Tennessee, that leaves the bathroom question in an unsettled federal gray area, with the state law reaching only government facilities.
What This Means for Students, Parents, and Employees
A transgender student in a Tennessee public school must use either the multi-occupancy restroom matching the sex on their original birth certificate or ask the school for access to a single-occupancy restroom. A local school board cannot adopt a policy allowing restroom use based on gender identity, and a parent who believes the school is not enforcing the law can bring a civil suit against the district.
For a school administrator, the compliance list is short and the stakes are concrete: designate the facilities, update the handbook, train staff, and make single-occupancy restrooms available as accommodations. State employees and local government workers in covered buildings follow the same biological-sex designation as students. Private-sector employees are not covered by the Tennessee law at all; their employer sets the policy, subject to whatever federal rules ultimately develop around workplace facilities.