Can our church be forced to let a man use the women's restroom?

What is actually happening

Somebody has raised the question, and the question itself is doing the work. It is not usually a lawsuit. It is a suggestion that a lawsuit is coming, aimed at a board that has never read its own facility use policy and does not know where it stands. What is being fished for is a quiet accommodation made under pressure, because one unwritten exception becomes the precedent that the next demand is measured against.

The Threat That Never Files · Rule 9. The fear of being sued, picketed, or called bigots is doing more work than any actual legal filing would. Activists know that a volunteer board will often concede at the word "discrimination" rather than spend a dollar finding out what the law actually says. Name the worst case out loud, price it, and most of the terror drains out of it.

What Scripture says

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27

What the book says · Chapter 17, The Mountain of Religion: Defending and Reclaiming Churches and Spiritual Organizations

“The primary defense against the hypocrisy indictment is precise definition, established before the attack arrives. Bylaws and statements of faith have to be explicit. Do not simply say you believe in justice. Define justice as the impartial application of God's moral law and explicitly reject the critical theory definition. Do not simply say you value inclusion. Define it as the welcoming of sinners to repentance rather than the affirmation of sin.”

From Rules for Radical Christians, quoted exactly.

What the law generally says

In the United States, public accommodation laws generally govern businesses open to the public, and houses of worship are often excluded outright or covered by a religious organization exemption. The First Amendment is generally understood to give a church broad control over its own worship space, its membership, and its internal governance. Coverage can look different where a church rents its building to the general public for weddings or events, runs a daycare, school, gym, or shelter, or accepts certain kinds of public funding, and in many places the line is drawn at whether the activity is religious or commercial in character. Some cities and counties have ordinances broader than their state law, so two congregations forty miles apart can sit under different rules. Which of these applies to you turns on your state and your municipality, and that is what Ask looks up.

The words to use

"Our facilities are set apart for the ministry of this congregation, and we assign restrooms by sex because we hold that God made us male and female. Can you show me the specific provision you believe requires us to do otherwise?"

Your move

1. Ask for the demand or complaint in writing, including who is making it and what provision they say applies. A verbal warning from a staff member or a vendor is not a legal notice.
2. Pull your bylaws, your statement of faith, and your facility use agreement and read them straight through. Find out what you have already committed to in writing before anyone else finds it.
3. Have the board adopt a written facilities policy: restrooms assigned by sex, applied to every user of the building, tied by reference to the doctrinal statement, and adding one single-occupancy locking restroom available to anyone.
4. Check where your building meets the public. Weddings for non-members, a rented gym, a daycare, a food pantry taking government money. That is where coverage most often attaches, and it is fixable now.
5. Ask a religious liberty attorney licensed in your state to review the policy before you adopt it, and use Ask to see what your state and city ordinances actually say.

• Document the date, the exact words used, and who was present for any demand or threat. Keep it in the church file, not in someone's phone.
• Ask for the citation. Anyone claiming the law compels you should be able to name the ordinance. Most cannot.
• Do not overstate your side either. Telling the congregation you will lose your tax exemption tomorrow hands the other side the one weapon that works permanently, which is a true story about your exaggeration.
• Be warm to the person and firm on the policy. A rule written about one individual in the middle of a crisis will not hold and should not.

Your situation, your state

This page is the general answer. Describe what is actually happening to you and Ask returns the answer for your situation and your state, with the law looked up and the exact words to use. Your first ask is free.

Not legal advice. When it stops being a conversation, a lawyer licensed in your state is the next call.