Bathroom Bill goes into effect this week

SB 8, better known as the Bathroom Bill goes into effect on Thursday, Dec. 4. The law targets transgender men and women and requires them to use the bathroom of their sex assigned at birth in certain places including city and county buildings, state agency offices, public schools and open-enrollment charter schools and public universities, family violence shelters and prisons. Prisons in Texas are already segregated by sex-assigned-at-birth for its 1,750 trans prisoners.

Privately owned facilities likes stores and restaurants are not included in the restrictions.

The new law does not include any enforcement provisions but instructs each facility to use “every reasonable step” to enforce. Can anyone demand to see another person’s genitals before allowing entry into a bathroom? That’s not prohibited. Should the police be called and what steps are police allowed to take? It’s not clear.

So what are the penalties for a trans man entering a men’s room or a trans woman entering a woman’s room? The individual isn’t penalized, but the facility where the wrong sex peeing took place may be fined and sued. Complaints will be handled by the attorney general’s office so you can be sure investigations will be started promptly.

— David Taffet