Reject SB8, Bathroom Bill. Discriminatory & Costly for Texas

Senate Bill 8 passed chambers and now awaits your signature. You have chosen to target the most vulnerable Texans for political gain. Forty-seven percent of LGBTQ youth in Texas seriously considered suicide in the past year, including 56% of transgender and nonbinary youth. The Trevor Project saw crisis contacts from LGBTQ youth in Texas increase by more than 150% between January and August 2021. Your bathroom bill will worsen this mental health crisis. When you force kids to use facilities that don’t match their identity, you’re telling them they don’t belong in Texas. Ask yourselves how many transgender people you know personally. Have you listened to their stories of growing up different? Have you heard about the pain of hiding who they are from unsupportive parents? The Texas Association of Business warned that anti-LGBT legislation could cost the state between $964 million and $8.5 billion annually, plus more than 100,000 jobs. Texas could lose out on as much as $1 billion in economic impact if the NCAA canceled its events currently slated for Texas. North Carolina suffered $3.76 billion in economic losses from its bathroom bill. Major corporations, tourism bureaus, and sporting events will abandon Texas. You’re gambling with our state’s economic future for cheap political points. Texas Competes, made up of more than 1,450 Texas employers, chambers of commerce, and tourism bureaus, opposes this legislation. SB8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by targeting citizens based on immutable characteristics. Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that bans like these violate people’s fundamental right to equal treatment. The bill encourages harassment of anyone who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes. This law puts anyone at risk who doesn’t seem masculine or feminine enough to a random stranger, including the cisgender girls and women this bill purports to protect. You’re creating government-sanctioned discrimination against law-abiding Texans who want to use the bathroom in peace. Transgender people represent less than one percent of Texas’s population. You’ve spent millions in taxpayer money targeting kids who just want to get through school safely. Seventy-two percent of Texans support anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Nearly half of transgender people in the United States have already relocated or considered relocating due to anti-transgender hate. You’re driving talented Texans away while making our state a national embarrassment. History will remember how you treated the most vulnerable among us. We urge you to reject SB8 and focus on the real challenges facing Texas families.