The North Carolina bathroom law battle over transgender rights and who can use which public restroom could be coming to Texas.
Recently, controversy surrounding the issue erupted in North Carolina, after lawmakers approved a bill that forces people to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender at birth.
On Tuesday, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick posted a petition on his website to “keep men out of women’s restrooms”.
Patrick blasted businesses like Target, who announced their new bathroom policy allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that don’t coincide with their birth gender. Patrick is asking for other Texans to join him in boycotting these businesses.
“This is not about equal rights, I am totally in favor of equal rights. I am not prejudice against anyone,” Patrick said in an interview with KXAS on Wednesday. “But I don’t want a man for any reason going into a woman’s bathroom or a woman’s locker room.”
“Common sense,” Patrick said, “Common decency says that men should stay out of ladies rooms.”
This week Patrick publicly supported statewide laws to prevent any city from enacting rules that let people choose which bathroom to use.
In November, Patrick led the campaign in Houston to stop the city’s “Equal Rights Ordinance,” which would have extended a wide range of protections in the city to Houstonians of all identities, including bathroom privileges. The ordinance, known as “HERO”, was defeated.
“None of these bills allow men into woman’s restrooms,” Chuck Smith, CEO of Equality Texas said. “That is a blatant lie and a misstatement of fact.”
Smith said arguments that transgender people are a threat are bogus, and a Texas law is completely unnecessary.
“Transgender people are more likely to be the victims of an assault than the perpetrator,” Smith said. “I would suggest that these proposed bills that amount to gender policing, are a solution in search of a problem. They simply aren’t needed.”
We reached out to other Republican state leaders to see if they would support a Texas bathroom bill.
“Governor Abbott has always sought to protect family values in Texas,” Abbott’s spokesman, John Wittman, said in a statement on Thursday, “and he looks forward to continuing that work in the 85th legislative session.”
