Don’t Pee in Texas, You’re Being Watched

By Raven Raevsky

On December 3, a Texas law, erroneously titled the “Texas Women’s Privacy

Act”, activated that bans trans people from their preferred multiple occupancy spaces, public restrooms being one of them. Trans people instead need to go to restrooms matching their gender assigned at birth. The law’s language states that state agencies and political subdivisions must take “every reasonable step” to ensure that people only go to the restroom of their “biological sex”. Anybody hoping to find multiple occupancy gender neutral restrooms will be distraught to find that the privacy act also bans multiple occupancy gender neutral restrooms, mandating that each multiple occupancy space must be designated “for use only by individuals of one sex”. The privacy act applies to public universities, city properties, public schools, open enrollment charter schools, and state agencies.

“Biological sex” is a term the anti-trans movement uses to dress up transphobic ideas about the objectivity and immutability of sex as being scientific, even though there are multiple characteristics that contribute to somebody’s sex. The bill’s fixation on biological sex ignores how some sex characteristics like hormones and reproductive organs can be modified by medical procedures. Other traits that transphobes focus on such as chromosomes and, in the case of the privacy act, the production of certain

gametes at any point in a person’s life, are invisible without specialized equipment and medical records.

The privacy act avoids specifying how institutions will verify the gender of a

restroom goer. Authorities may use anything from physical appearance to invasive inspections of body parts in investigating the genders of restroom goers.

The bill also enflames an environment where transphobes already target any restroom user they suspect to be trans, even harassing cisgender restroom goers in the process. Making matters even more dystopian, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton launched a tip line where users can report sightings of transpeople in their preferred restrooms, practically letting the state government spy on restrooms to kick transpeople out.

The Texas government’s assault on restroom freedom follows a tidal wave of

escalations in Texas and the broader MAGA movement’s assaults on queer people.

This bill alone also targets transpeople’s access to their preferred prisons and family violence shelters. More broadly, the Texas Supreme Court has legalized judicial refusal of marrying same-sex couples, the Texas government has banned drag performances from college campuses, and the federal government is starting to remove Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals offering gender affirming hormones and surgeries.

Organizations like AFL-CIO, ACLU, UAW have condemned the far right’s

broader attack on the LGBTQ community earlier this year. In a note to local outlet The Texas Newsroom, ACLU confirmed they are considering a lawsuit. Texas ACLU policy and advocacy strategist Ash Hall described the privacy bill as a “discriminatory bill”.

When the bill was signed into law in August 22, the advocacy group Trans Texas staged a sit-in at a women’s restroom in the Texas Capitol building in protest of the decision.

Despite the strength and depravity of Texan GOP, the midterm elections may

present opportunities for opponents of the privacy act to fight back against it. Multiple Republican state senators are dropping their seats to run for state attorney general, after incumbent Ken Paxton announced he’d run for a US Senate seat against incumbent John Cornyn. Some people may wonder if Texan voters would let the GOP know they don’t like being spied on in restrooms.