By Matt Murphy and Andy Metzger

State House News Service

BOSTON — The push to further protect transgender individuals from discrimination in public places drew crowds Tuesday to Beacon Hill as supporters cast the debate as the next civil-rights battle, while opponents raised concerns about privacy and safety.

Hundreds showed up to testify before a legislative committee as momentum appears to be building this year for the House and Senate to vote on a bill that would expand anti-discrimination laws to allow access to legally gender-segregated public facilities based on a person’s gender identity.

Senate President Stanley Rosenberg supports the bill but Gov. Charlie Baker has expressed reservations and House Speaker Robert DeLeo has indicated he wants to have further talks with his colleagues before deciding whether to bring a bill forward for a vote.

While supporters argue that transgender individuals face the threat of discrimination everywhere from restaurants to hospitals, opponents have focused largely on whether access to bathrooms and locker rooms would be protected based on whether someone identifies themselves as male or female.

Massachusetts lawmakers in 2011 passed a law adding transgender individuals to the list of protected classes from employment or housing discrimination, but stopped short of including public accommodations protections. Seventeen other states and the District of Colombia have approved public accommodation protection laws for transgender people.

The controversial topic, which prompted emotional testimony from members of the transgender community, also drew some of the state’s most prominent political leaders — including Attorney General Maura Healey and Congressman Joseph Kennedy III — to the Statehouse to urge lawmakers to act.

Recalling an earlier era of racial segregation, Healey said discomfort is not a sufficient reason to continue to allow discrimination against transgender individuals in public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms.

“What I do know is out there is some level of discomfort,” Healey told the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “People were uncomfortable sharing pools and sharing drinking fountains. Discomfort is not a reason to perpetuate discrimination.”

Healey said even if a transgender person was discriminated from entering a government building such as the Statehouse “the law isn’t going to be there to protect them.”

Rep. James Lyons, an Andover Republican and opponent of the legislation, led the pushback. As a member of the Judiciary Committee hearing the bill, Lyons contended that “the privacy rights of my children matter,” questioning how youngsters might react to a transgender classmate using the same bathroom.

Using the hypothetical scenario of a teenage girl in a locker room being uncomfortable with a male who identifies as female using the same showers, Lyons said protecting access to those types of public facilities has the potential to be abused.

“Let’s talk about these young women who do feel uncomfortable. What protections are we going to put in place for them?” Lyons asked.

Kennedy brought with him several people whose lives have been impacted by the issue, including 14-year-old Brandon Adams, of Framingham, who spoke about transitioning from a girl to a boy while attending Christa McAuliffe Charter School in Framingham.

“I asked to use the boys bathroom because that’s where I felt safe,” he told lawmakers. When school officials tried to offer him the gender-neutral staff bathroom instead, Adams said his male peers bullied him and called him a “freak,” to the point that he tried to avoid the bathroom altogether.

Massachusetts Family Institute President Andrew Beckwith told the News Service he believes transgender individuals are already protected by existing laws from being discriminated against in places like restaurants and hospitals, and can file claims with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

“I think if you look behind you there are two bathrooms labeled ladies and men and there’s a reason for that,” Beckwith said. “That’s based on our anatomical being, our biology, our DNA, not on some sort of inner sense of feeling or expression so it’s important to maintain those expectations of privacy and safety that could be easily abused given the very vague standard definition of gender identify if this bill were to pass.”