North Dakota Legislative Assembly
The North Dakota Legislative Assembly is the state's bicameral legislature, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It meets in regular session in odd-numbered years, numbered by assembly, which the archive cites directly. Its entries reach back to 2003 and record bills it passed on school facilities, state records, and civil rights protections.
2025 Events (2)
North Dakota Gov. Armstrong signed HB1144 restricting transgender students' bathroom access and requiring schools to out them to parents
On May 1, 2025, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed House Bill 1144, barring K-12 public schools from maintaining all-gender multi-stall restrooms or shower rooms and requiring such facilities be designated for one sex only. The law also requires school staff to notify a student's parents if they learn the student is transgender, with violations enforceable by the state Attorney General through fines up to $2,500.
North Dakota Gov. Armstrong signed HB1181 defining gender in state law as biological sex
North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong signed House Bill 1181 into law on April 23, 2025, amending the North Dakota Century Code to define "gender" as a person's biological sex throughout state statute. The law governs how state-funded institutions, including public schools and state agencies, record and treat sex and gender on official forms and documents. The bill passed the North Dakota House 74-13, the Senate as amended 41-6, and cleared final House concurrence 79-11 before reaching the governor's desk.
2023 Events (6)
North Dakota enacted HB 1522 restricting transgender students' restroom use and barring schools from concealing their status from parents
On May 8, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1522, which requires public school boards to prohibit students from using restrooms that do not coincide with their "biological sex," allowing separate accommodations only with parental approval. The law also bars schools and teachers from adopting policy on a student's transgender status or withholding that status from the student's parents, and prohibits government entities from requiring or forbidding employees' use of colleagues' preferred pronouns. The measure passed the Legislative Assembly with an emergency clause and took effect immediately.
North Dakota Gov. Burgum signed HB 1473, restricting transgender people from restrooms and showers in state prisons and college dormitories
On April 25, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1473, enacting new Century Code sections requiring restrooms and shower rooms in state correctional facilities—including the penitentiary and the youth correctional center—and in dormitories controlled by the state board of higher education to be designated for exclusive use by one sex. The law bars transgender inmates and college students from multi-occupancy restrooms and showers that match their gender identity, permitting deviation only as a "reasonable accommodation" at the discretion of facility or dormitory staff.
North Dakota Gov. Burgum signed HB 1254, a felony ban on gender-affirming care for minors
On April 19, 2023, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1254, enacting a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. The law makes it a class B felony for providers to perform gender-affirming surgery on minors and a class A misdemeanor to prescribe puberty blockers or hormone therapy for that purpose. It contains an exception for minors with a medically verifiable intersex condition but none for transgender minors.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed HB 1489, barring transgender women from women's college sports teams
On April 11, 2023, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed HB 1489, requiring public and competing private colleges to designate athletic teams as male, female, or coed and barring female-designated teams to students defined as "the male sex" at birth. The measure, passed by the 68th Legislative Assembly (House 75-18, Senate 40-7), excludes transgender women from women's collegiate athletics and creates a private right of action to enforce the separation. Burgum signed it in Bismarck alongside a K-12 companion bill, HB 1249.
North Dakota Gov. Burgum signed HB 1249, barring transgender girls from female K-12 school sports teams
On April 11, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1249, enacting Chapter 15.1-39 of the North Dakota Century Code and requiring public and eligible nonpublic K-12 schools to designate athletic teams as male, female, or coed by a birth-based definition of "sex." The law bars students of the male sex — including transgender girls — from female-designated teams, prohibits adverse action against schools that maintain separate female teams, and creates a private civil cause of action with a two-year limit for damages and attorney's fees. The Legislative Assembly passed the measure 78-15 in the House and 38-9 in the Senate.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed HB1139, defining birth-record sex as biological and fixed at birth
On April 7, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed HB1139, amending the state's Health Statistics Act to define "sex" as the biological state of being female or male based on a person's sex organs, chromosomes, and hormone profiles at birth. The law requires every birth record to designate a child as male or female and bars a "not yet determined" entry unless sex is genuinely undeterminable on that biological basis. The measure passed 81-11 in the House and 42-5 in the Senate, codifying a binary conception of sex fixed at birth into North Dakota's vital-records law.
2003 Events (1)
North Dakota Gov. Hoeven signed SB 2188, shielding child-placing agencies that refuse placements on religious or moral grounds
On April 22, 2003, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven signed Senate Bill 2188 into law, enacting N.D.C.C. § 50-12-07.1, which bars the state from denying, revoking, or refusing to renew a license, grant, or contract to a child-placing agency that declines placements conflicting with its religious beliefs or moral convictions. The bill passed the 58th North Dakota Legislative Assembly with Senate votes of 45–2 and 41–3 (conference report) and a House vote of 72–18. North Dakota became one of the earliest states to codify a religious exemption for adoption and foster-care agencies, a model later adopted by several other states.