OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Legislation aimed at keeping youths who send sexually explicit texts from being charged and registered under adult sex offender laws has been sent to Gov. Inslee.

The bill that passed in the state Legislature on Wednesday night would create a new group of crimes reserved specifically for minors who are caught with explicit images of other minors. Most of the new crimes would be set as misdemeanors — a status that would exempt convicted youth from having to register as sex offenders.

Even critics of the bill acknowledged that current state law creates a situation where teens reporting an explicit image to adults could be charged with a felony for possessing or creating child pornography, leading to them being registered in the same public database as adult sex offenders.

The bill would create a separate set of crimes only applicable to under-18 offenders, making it a misdemeanor instead of a felony for a minor to exchange images of another minor, with some exceptions for images of certain behaviors. Exchanging images of a child 12 or younger would remain a felony.