The Texas Legislature’s latest Republican bathroom bill hearing in Austin revealed as much about the politics of fear as it did about the actual proposal on the table.
Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.
For two hours on Friday, the Texas House Committee on State Affairs heard testimony on House Bill 52, the companion to Senate Bill 8, which the state senate passed earlier this week. The Texas Women’s Privacy Act would require that people in government buildings, including schools, courthouses, and universities, use multi-user bathrooms, locker rooms, and shelters according to the sex on their original birth certificate. Local governments or agencies that do not comply could face civil penalties of $5,000 for a first violation and $25,000 for each subsequent one.
But inside the hearing room, the measure’s defenders often struggled to explain how such a law could possibly work.
A lawman’s reality
Constable Stacy Suits, who has overseen Travis County Precinct 3 for nearly a decade, offered the committee his daily reality. His office sits directly across from the courthouse restrooms.
“In those nine years, we have not had an incident like [what] has been described as what’s been happening,” Suits said. “We’re not interested in being the potty police.”
Suits then revealed a more personal stake. “During the pandemic, my child, who identified as they, moved to Portland, Oregon. They are now transitioning and identify as a he. So I worry about their safety and the effects of this,” he said.
Veteran Democrat Rep. Senfronia Thompson seized on Suits’ testimony to underline the bill’s shaky premise. “And you have not encountered any incident?” she asked.
“Not in the last nine years,” Suits replied.
“And Travis County is in Texas? United States of America?” Thompson pressed, to laughter in the room.
“Yes, ma’am,” Suits said.
Her final question cut to the core of the hearing: “Have you been able to determine a trans person going into the restroom?”
“I really don’t want to go there because we don’t want to be the potty police,” Suits answered. “We have enough trouble right now distinguishing in law enforcement between hemp and marijuana.”
“I’ve been trying to pick up what are the characteristics of a trans person so that I can be able to identify one,” Thompson responded. “I have not picked that up.”
Bill sponsor struggles with enforcement
If Suits and Thompson grounded the debate in real-world law enforcement, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Angelia Orr, was left straining to defend its abstractions.
“Under the bill, if it becomes law, who would actually be in charge of confirming someone’s gender or biological sex? Whose job is that?” asked Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat.
Orr admitted there were no criminal penalties. Instead, she said, complaints would be filed by the person who believes they have shared a bathroom with someone who isn’t allowed to be there “in writing” with the government entity in charge of the building — a mayor, a city manager — who would then have three days to “cure” the violation.
Turner pressed: “So then the chief executive … receives the written complaint, and then what would happen?”
“They would have three days to cure it by making sure that their signage is appropriate and that if they are notified that someone of the opposite sex is using the wrong facility, that they address that and let the person know that they have received their complaint,” Orr said.
Hernandez raised the glaring omission of intersex people. “How would someone know whether an individual is a male or a female? Just by the way they look?”
“Yes, in this case,” Orr responded.
“So there are all these enforcements and penalties, and we’re going to go by someone’s opinion of how someone looks,” Hernandez said.
Fear versus facts
Public testimony reflected the culture-war split. Anna Nguyen of PFLAG Austin accused lawmakers of scapegoating a vulnerable minority. “Why else would they go after the trans demographic that is 0.4 percent of the population?” Nguyen, who is trans, asked. “Because this is a culture war issue and it helps them cling to power.”
Supporters offered a very different picture. Dan Chandler, appearing with a Confederate and U.S. flag affixed to his walker, warned of divine punishment. “We got lines in the sky, we got blood moons, we’ve got tsunamis, we’ve got all kinds of signs,” he said. “If God will send a flood because you tore down the Confederate plaque, what do you think he’s going to do about these kids?”
Theresa Thomas of Moms for America said she had no prepared remarks but wanted to share her experiences. She described her time in graduate school at Texas Tech, where she said men repeatedly entered women’s dorm showers. “I was in a shower when a man came into our girls’ dorm and had sexual play with the RA. I had to stay in a shower for 40 minutes until they got done,” she said. “This was repeated and repeated over the time I was there.” She added that when her children visited her dorm, she worried about “when a heterosexual male was coming in and they were not safe.”
Thomas then argued that traffickers could exploit bathrooms. She suggested that handlers could present themselves as female to shield their victims, leaving women and children vulnerable. She asked lawmakers how many times such an incident has to occur before it is considered too many.
Police speak out
But law enforcement voices kept returning to the same point: the bill is unworkable, and it endangers people who already wear the badge.
Sgt. Michael Wilmore Crumrine, president of the Lesbian and Gay Peace Officers Association, testified against SB 8 on behalf of the group and himself. “I’ve had the privilege of being a law enforcement officer and protecting the citizens of Texas for well over 38 years,” he said. “There are over 200 law enforcement officers in the state of Texas that are transgender, not to mention hundreds of EMS and fire department personnel and other emergency management personnel who are also transgender.”
He warned that similar laws elsewhere have already led to more than 45 instances where transgender police officers were confronted while using restrooms. “Passage of SB 8 would only increase these instances of violence and make officers less safe even within their own agencies,” Crumrine said.
“As a body that has consistently fought to protect and support law enforcement and public safety personnel, this bill directly negates your previous positions,” he told the committee. “I strongly encourage this body to vote no on SB 8.”
At the conclusion of his testimony, Thompson asked, “Did I hear you say that you had transgender officers?”
Crumrine responded, “We absolutely do.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Texas constable tells legislators ‘We’re not interested in being the potty police’ at bathroom bill hearing
Comments