AUSTIN, Texas –The Texas House of Representatives plans to introduce a new “bathroom bill” that mimics North Carolina’s so-called “repeal” to its HB 2. Texas’s HB 2899 would invalidate all existing local non-discrimination LGBTQ ordinances in Texas and pave the way for future anti-LGBTQ bills that could further harm all LGBTQ Texans.
The Dallas News reports that House Bill 2899 will be debated in the State Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The amended bill would ban cities, school districts and any other “political subdivisions” from passing local laws that protect certain people from discrimination in an intimate space. This would render local nondiscrimination ordinances that protect the rights of transgender people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity unenforceable.
Responding to the bill proposal, Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD said, “The newly proposed HB 2899 is even worse than SB 6 because it invalidates all existing local non-discrimination ordinances that protect LGBTQ Texans and gives anti-LGBTQ state lawmakers full control over future LGBTQ local non-discrimination laws. HB 2899 is another harmful ‘solution’ in search of a problem and will accomplish one thing: further putting the lives of all LGBTQ Texans in jeopardy.”
If Texas passed a bathroom bill this year, it would become the second state in the nation, after North Carolina, to do so.
