Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill Monday that will bar transgender people from using restrooms that align with their gender identities in state-owned buildings and public schools, including universities, with fines of up to $125,000 for institutions that violate the law.
The law was a decade in the making. Texas first considered a similar measure in 2015 and again in 2017, though the bill didn’t pass then in part due to the nationwide backlash to North Carolina’s HB2, which became known as the “bathroom bill” and led to boycotts from major corporations and musicians until the state repealed the law in 2017.
Now, however, the political climate has shifted, and Texas will become the 20th state that restricts what restrooms trans people can use when its law takes effect Dec. 4.
In a statement shared on social media after he signed the bill, Abbott called it “a common sense public safety issue.”
The law will affect more than just restrooms in public buildings. It will also require jails and prisons to house inmates according to birth sex and will prohibit trans women or anyone assigned male at birth from receiving services at a women’s domestic violence shelter with an exception for the minor children of women receiving services at such a shelter.
State Rep. Angelia Orr, a Republican, referred to trans women as men during debate over the bill and said the measure is intended to keep women and girls safe, according to NBC affiliate WOAI of San Antonio. Proponents of bathroom restrictions have long used safety concerns to justify limits on sex-segregated spaces. However, a 2018 study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that allowing trans people to use facilities that align with their gender identities does not increase safety risks.
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