Southern Queer Newsroom
Texas Special Session Presents Further Threats to Trans Texans
The 2025 special session of the Texas State Legislature has already come under the national spotlight for the decision of Democratic lawmakers to boycott the entire session over an intensely gerrymandered Congressional map. While there are multiple bills introduced that seek to reform the disaster relief process in the wake of massive July flooding, Republicans have taken this session as an opportunity to push their own partisan goals.
Senate Bill 7 is a broad-ranging bathroom bill that would eliminate unisex multi-occupant bathrooms in universities and domestic violence shelters, ban transgender people from using the bathroom they present as and identify with, force transgender women into men's prisons and vice versa, and significantly increase penalties for violations.
According to Equality Texas, the main focus of the bill is the further punishment of transgender Texans continuing to exist as themselves in public. Public testimony repeatedly showed that not only was there zero evidence for the claim that trans woman harass and assault cis women regularly, but that men have entered women's spaces as vigilantes to harass women that did not look feminine enough.
Legislation passed during the main session included a code-wide definition of "male" and "female" defined by whether they carry or inseminate eggs, demanding all state records (including driver's licenses) reflect the sex assigned at birth and intersex status, mandating health insurance cover detransition, banning rural transgender children from receiving gender affirming counseling, and banning Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in Texas schools, according to Ayden Runnels from the Texas Tribune.
With all but six Democrats having boycotted the special session, the bill was passed out of committee on August 4 with a 10-1 vote. The only no vote was likely State Rep. Richard Peña Raymond. At time of writing, SQN does not have access to the committee vote record or the video recording of the committee meeting, however Rep. Raymond is the only Democrat on the committee present for the session, and that leaves 10 Republicans and 1 Democrat on the committee.
Because of the current boycott, the Texas House of Representatives has no quorum and cannot vote on passing any legislation beyond committee. Until there is a resolution to the boycott, this bill, much like disaster relief and partisan gerrymandering, is at a standstill.
(Note: Thanks to the Southern Jewish Resource Network (SOJOURN) for bringing this to SQN's attention and to Ayden Runnels from the Texas Tribune for summarizing the 2025 legislative session.)