Texas GOP Uses Emergency Flood Relief to Push Trans Bathroom Ban

After deadly flooding in Texas, Republicans used an emergency legislative session called to tackle the state’s most pressing issue: where trans people pee.

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The Texas state senate passed a much-maligned anti-trans bathroom ban on August 6, but it still faces major hurdles before it could become law.

Senate Bill 7, deceptively named the “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” seeks to pry its way into the bathrooms of kids and adults alike, if the GOP gets their way. It further codifies a legal (but unscientific) definition of biological “sex” and requires that children as young as 10 years old be forced into the bathroom that corresponds with their government-assigned gender. It covers any government-owned building or property–from domestic violence shelters and prisons, to public schools, to some airports, sports stadiums, and state parks, requiring them to discriminate against trans people.

“At a time when our communities are still reeling from the loss and devastation of the floods, right-wing legislators are choosing to divide and distract us by policing where transgender Texans pee,” said Marti Bier, Texas Freedom Network’s Chief Program Officer, in a public statement.

“Lawmakers are stoking fear and creating a dangerous environment where all people, regardless of gender identity, will be subject to violence and harassment in public spaces if they do not conform to someone’s binary, personal view of what a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ should look like.”

It also puts the civil liberties of intersex people in jeopardy, whose existence would be effectively erased by the law.

Governor Greg Abbott ushered the bill into the state house via a special session, which is an off-season convening of legislators to address time-sensitive issues. It has been scheduled since at least June, but a month later, once-in-a-century flooding overtook large swaths of the region, claiming well over 100 lives, many of whom were campers and counselors at a girls’ summer camp in Kerr County.

As a result, most of the agenda items were geared towards disaster preparedness and relief, but Abbott also put a highly controversial gerrymandering scheme and the anti-trans bathroom ban on the docket.

Such restrictions have been proposed in some form in the state for every legislative session since 2017, the same year Hurricane Harvey decimated the Lone Star State, killing more than 80 people.

“We need flood control, not bathroom control,” said Eve Gammill, a grandparent and Navy veteran, during the public comment hearing. She denounced the bill as a trans constituent of one of the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Mayes Middleton.

She was joined by over a hundred Texans who signed up to testify against the bill that day.

“If SB 7 passes, I won’t just lose access to a restroom. I’ll lose access to the future in this state I’ve worked so hard to build,” said Autumn Lauener, Vice President of the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Scholars, in a speech to lawmakers. “If this is what we’re calling justice, then justice has forgotten me. Justice has forgotten Texas.”

If a school, a park, etc., were to permit trans people to use their preferred bathroom, they could incur fines upwards of $25,000. Exceptions are carved out for emergency situations, such as a law enforcement response, or instances where a caregiver is present to aid a disabled person. But anyone can raise a complaint if they even suspect that a trans person may have used the “wrong” bathroom. This could subject transgender and cisgender people alike to dehumanizing investigations into their gender, sex and reproductive organs at the drop of a hat.

Proponents in the senate attempted to grandstand on the matter, asserting that the bill would reduce violence against women, but they could not produce empirical evidence to back this claim upon request. In fact, they couldn’t even name one instance of gender violence transpiring in a Texas bathroom.

Senate Bill 7 must now pass the House, but this seems unlikely, given the fact that most Democratic legislators fled the state in order to break quorum and delay any votes on the GOP’s racially-charged gerrymandering plan. In response, the Governor deployed law enforcement to try to apprehend the lawmakers. But their continued absence also stalls voting on the anti-trans provision indefinitely.

"We are fighting for representative democracy, and whether or not that will continue,” said State Representative James Talarico. “We're willing to face whatever consequences may come our way.”