Alabama House lawmakers on Tuesday approved legislation that would prohibit transgender students from using gender-segregated facilities, such as restrooms and locker rooms, that align with their gender identity.

The bill was approved with a vote of 74-24 after two hours of debate. Under the bill, K-12 schools would require students to use gender-segregated facilities that match the sex on the student’s original birth certificate.

Republican Rep. Scott Stadthagen explained that the bill is focused on privacy, safety, and preventing sexual predators from accessing school bathrooms. “I am trying to prevent any males who were born males from going into female bathrooms,” Stadthagen told the committee. “It’s a safety issue. I for one, as a father, do not want a male, who is born male, in my daughter’s bathroom.”

Stadthagen described sexual assaults that have happened in school bathrooms when urging committee support for the bill. When a committee member asked if the attacker was transgender, Stadthagen replied that he did not know.

Opponents of the bill argue that the bill discriminates against transgender youth. “This is basically a safety privilege transfer. If someone in K-12 is going to identify as gender-expansive, this bill is putting them in harm’s way of being attacked and bullied, as well as sexual assault,” said Carmarion D. Anderson, the director for Human Rights Campaign Alabama.

Democratic state Rep. Neil Rafferty, opposing the bill, asserted that schools in his Birmingham district have handled accommodations for transgender students “without targeting vulnerable youth that are already having issues with suicide, mental illness, bullying.” Rafferty argued that the bill is “demonizing an already vulnerable population. It’s all under the guise of protecting children just to win cheap political points.”

The bill now moves to the Alabama Senate, where more than 45 Republicans in the 105-member House have signed on co-sponsors.