Law maker

Justin Sia’s (JD ’20) bill to designate multi-stall restrooms as gender neutral is signed into law

In 2023, House Bill 1286 went into effect in Illinois. This groundbreaking new statute allows businesses, schools, and other organizations to designate their multi-stall restrooms as gender neutral, which previously was not permitted under state law. A major victory for the LGBTQ+ community, HB 1286 had a long journey to becoming law. And it all started at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where Justin Ian Sia (JD ‘20) drafted the bill as his capstone project.

As Sia entered his third year of law school, he wanted to hone his skills in legislative analysis and drafting, a desire that began even before law school. When his advisor, then-Assistant Dean Kirk Walter, approached him to discuss the demand for gender-neutral restrooms on campus—and the legal issues around designating one—Sia and Walter instantly saw an opportunity. “Feeling safe in one’s identity is an issue that is close to my heart as an LGBTQ+ person,” Sia says. “This was an opportunity for me to focus on something that I’m really passionate about, but also a really wonderful opportunity to make change.” It felt like the perfect subject to explore in his capstone.

Writing a bill

The first step to writing a bill? Lots of research. Sia began reading legal articles and connecting with scholars, advocates, community members, and nonprofits. He credits Walter and former Interim Dean Zelda Harris with supporting this project from its conception. When imagining the future of gender-neutral restrooms and turning that future into legislation, he was encouraged to keep an open and optimistic mind. “Dean Walter continuously reminded me to be creative and think outside of the box, a useful skill that really helps me today as a lawyer,” he says.

After he drafted language for the bill, Sia connected with the LGBTQ+ nonprofit Equality Illinois and Illinois State Representative Katie Stuart to introduce the bill to the Illinois legislature—a partnership that proved integral to turning the bill into law. Sia went on to create fact sheets, deliver testimony in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and write an op-ed in Crain’s Chicago Business.

“It feels so fulfilling to see a project that started four years ago finally turn into a groundbreaking statute.”

Signing the bill into law

On August 11, 2023, more than four years after Sia began his capstone project, Governor Pritzker signed the bill into law. As anti-trans legislation gains ground across the country, bills like this lead the way for LGBTQ rights across the country. States including California and Illinois, and Washington, D.C., already have laws in place designating single-stall bathrooms as gender neutral; California also recently passed a bill into law requiring that all K-12 schools provide gender-neutral bathrooms by 2026.

“It feels so fulfilling to see a project that started four years ago finally turn into a groundbreaking statute,” says Sia. “It’s an honor to be on the cusp of this new, welcoming type of legal protection that hopefully will catch fire around the country.”

Staying open to opportunities

When Sia advises current law school students, he encourages them to be open to opportunities that might initially seem intimidating—because that’s how he felt when he began writing HB 1286. “Try to be as creative as you can in your law school experience, because it allowed me to achieve big goals and grow so much as an attorney,” he says.

Today, Sia works at Miner, Barnhil & Galland, a Chicago-based civil rights firm, where he provides corporate legal advising for nonprofits. And he remains grateful for the foundations he built in law school. “Loyola really prides itself in preparing law students to be really good lawyers, and also preparing law students to go out and make the world a better place,” he says. –Megan Kirby (December 2023)