Southern Queer Newsroom
(Author's note, this story contains descriptions of statements that may be triggering to readers. If you or a loved one are experiencing depression or thoughts of self harm or suicide, please contact the Trevor Project hotline at 866-488-7386 or Trans Lifeline at 877-545-8860.)
Early in the morning of August 22, the Texas House Committee of State Affairs met to hear testimony on Senate Bill 8, a bill that would seek to further crack down on trans people using restrooms in any publicly-owned facilities by slapping enormous fines on the building's owners and allowing for random individuals to sue to enforce these policies. This bill has already faced heavy opposition this session for fighting a culture war instead of pursuing much-needed disaster relief, and both Democratic politicians and trans people living their own lives said as much.
Legislators question necessity
One item noticed by Democratic lawmaker Ana Hernandez (HD-143) was the use of reproductive capability to determine what sex someone is, something that cannot be easily shown by just looking at a person's secondary sex characteristics like weight distribution or height. It also, like HB 267 during Georgia's 2025 legislative session, completely removes any legal recognition of intersex people, yet again sweeping it under the rug of "congenital anomaly."
When Rep. Angelia Orr (R-HD-13), who carried the bill in the House, was asked about this oversight, she plainly said "it depends on whether you recognize whether there are two biological sexes." Under further questioning from Hernandez on what intersex people were supposed to do, Orr said they would be accomodated by single-use restrooms—which are not available everywhere—but that they were not forced to use those facilities. This is a large oversight of around one percent of the general population and displays a routine ignorance of conservative politicians around the country about intersex people.
Rep. Orr would not say during questioning whether the bill would override local non-discrimination ordinances, instead saying "I think if their policy is in line with this legislation, they will not need to change it. But if it is outside these bounds, then yes." She also admitted that individual enforcement would basically come down to whether someone looks too masculine in a women's space or vice versa.
Hernandez heavily criticized each section of the bill, noting that an age cutoff of nine years old could infringe on parental rights if a parent decided to take a ten year old child with them into a bathroom, and that refusing to admit minor boys into a women's domestic violence shelter would encourage mothers to stay in abusive situations.
Public comment
Public comment on the bill was largely evenly split between supporters and opponents, with supporters often coming from organizations such as the Travis County GOP, Texas GOP Executive Committee, and San Antonio Family Association. Opponents of the bill included representatives of Texas Impact, the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), PFLAG Austin, the Gender Liberation Movement, and regular trans people who came out to represent themselves.
Opponents, like Ezra Morales, regularly expressed frustration with the committee, were insulted by the continuous assault on their rights and dignity by the state, and compared the bill to Jim Crow laws banning Black people from entering the "wrong" bathroom. Constable Suits, a Travis County tax office security guard, said that over nine years of his precinct office being right next to the bathrooms, "we have not had an incident like has been described as happening in the Capitol. We are not interested in being the potty police."
Also of note to opponents was language in the bill designed to prevent the courts from ruling on the constitutionality of this legisation or blocking enforcement statewide, which has been a common complaint by the Trump administration over their own policies being blocked on constitutional grounds. This action is highly unusual, and appears to serve the same purpose as an "everything-proof shield" during elementary school recess.
Supporters, for their part, engaged in pseudoscience about "curing" gender dysphoria; deadnamed Lia Thomas, a trans athlete who beat Riley Gaines in one swimming race three years ago; painted transgender women as mentally ill perverts "sexualizing our children;" and admitted to wanting to castrate a transgender woman in San Antonio. After one group's testimony, expletives and insults were traded between two men and opponents in the crowd, with one man, CJ Grisham, removed from the chamber for making a woman feel threatened. That man was photographed by Texas Tribune photographer Bob Daemmrich holding a rifle magazine in the committee room before his expulsion.
Where SB 8 stands
The bill was not voted on, and was instead held as pending, whether due to time constraints or Chairman King not wanting so many eyes on its eventual passage. Afterwards, the committee heard testimony on House Bill 7, which would ban individuals from using abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone to get an abortion, and includes whistleblower protections for individuals that engage in vigilante behavior. That bill also received two hours of contentious testimony and was also held pending. Currently neither bill has been passed out of committee.
"For nearly a decade," said Gender Liberation Movement representative Raquel Willis, "bills like this one have painted trans people as threats. But the truth is we are the ones consistently under attacks, and disproportionately impacted by violence in prisons and shelters and beyond."
You can find the full House Committee on State Affairs hearing on SB 8 here.