Member Story: How HB 121 impacts domestic violence shelters

As part of our effort to document the impacts of Montana’s 2025 Legislative Session on nonprofits, MNA sat down with members to talk about three key bills that passed this session. The following is a conversation with Kelsen Young, Executive Director of Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, about how House Bill 121, aka the Bathroom Bill, could impact operations at domestic violence shelters.

House Bill 121 requires public schools, correctional centers, domestic violence shelters, and government buildings to designate multi-user restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping areas for use by either males or females. People must use the facilities that match their assigned sex at birth, according to the bill’s definitions, with a few exceptions for things like emergency services, maintenance, or helping young children or people with disabilities. The bill is currently (9/4/2025) on hold due to an ongoing lawsuit. MNA opposed HB 121.

The Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (MCADSV) is a statewide organization and an independent nonprofit. We operate on behalf of local victim service programs to advocate, secure funding, and provide training and technical assistance to all sorts of providers, including our members. 

We are not in favor of this policy, and it actually goes against our federal rules. Most shelters in Montana receive federal funding that requires us to provide services regardless of gender. There are elements of House Bill 121 that try to restrict our ability to serve all genders within the shelter. We have a good number of programs in Montana that can provide sex-specific services and serve all genders. There are also shelters that are not set up in a way that can easily serve multiple genders within the same space, and we have already evolved alternatives to be able to provide services in these cases. The bottom line for us is that when the laws changed about 10 years ago, we moved in a direction of being able to serve all people, and that’s where we want to stay.  

HB 121 is currently being litigated. We are not directly involved in the case but are following it closely. The law is currently on hold through a preliminary injunction. As long as the lawsuit prevents implementation, we will continue to operate as we are. If the lawsuit fails, we will figure out how to adapt those shelters that are not in a position of being able to do sex-segregated services but will do it within our own context. We will not deny services, we’ll just find multiple ways to provide them. 

Absolutely we’re worried about the legal liability created by HB 121, and the hassle of hiring attorneys and defending ourselves when we could be providing services. Domestic violence shelters are the only private facility that was targeted in HB 121. We did not ask for this, we do not support it. This law wants us to see a problem where there isn’t one, and it wants us to create solutions for things that we’ve already figured out.  

A problem for us with this bill is that it requires the separation of genders even within a family, which is completely not doable for us. We are not going to make a young boy stay separate from his mom. We would probably run the risk of having someone file a lawsuit against us, but for us, it’s more important that the family is able to stay intact, and that we’re not creating arbitrary barriers. We just reject the idea that somehow people are at risk in our shelters from other residents. That’s just not how this works, and if there is ever a risk, we have rules and regulations to deal with those situations.  

The idea that women don’t feel safe around men, or vice versa, is not our lived experience. People feel safe around people who are safe. Although the domestic violence movement started with women-only shelters, we have learned to evolve based on the fact that people need us, and we needed to figure out how to meet their needs. We want to continue to evolve our services to serve all people, that’s a fundamental value for us.