Austin (WBAP/KLIF News) – The Texas Senate started debate on a measure that would restrict transgender bathroom use Tuesday morning. The measure, introduced by Republican Lois Kolkhorst, would require people to use the bathroom of the gender listed on their birth certificate in schools and government buildings.
Kolkhorst said she had received a letter from a constituent who said she started supporting the measure as a result of what happened in a changing room of a department store.
“A man was walking through the dressing rooms and peering over the tops of the dressing rooms, looking at her 15 year old daughter,” Kolkhorst said.
She rejected a study by the Texas Association of Business that said Texas could lose $8.5 billion in business if the measure passes. Kolkhorst says North Carolina’s economy has grown since it repealed parts of its bill.
“This legislation actually mirrors their most recent repeal a little more closely,” she said.
The Texas Association of Business has spent more than a million dollars on ads opposing the bill. The one minute ad includes a woman who says she is a Dallas Cowboys fan, and the measure could lead to the NFL rejecting Dallas’ bid to host the NFL draft in 2018.
Outside the Texas Capitol, police chiefs and school superintendents spoke in opposition to the law.
“If you support your police then listen to your police,” said Dallas police Major Reuben Ramirez. “There’s no need for this legislation.”
Police say the measure would stretch departments too thin, and they have no record of men posing as transgender to spy on women. The superintendent of Northside Independent School District, in San Antonio, says the legislature should instead focus on other issues.
“I’d sure like to see the Texas Legislature spend its valuable time on school finance and funding fast-growth schools across our state,” he said.
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