Imagine a law so confusing that, within days of its debut, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers were standing outside women’s restrooms at the state capitol to demand people show IDs just to step inside a take a leak.
Give a big ol’ Texas “Howdy” to Senate Bill 8, the latest shameful spectacle to float up from the state legislature — a statute that signals what a literal shitshow the GOP-controlled body has become.
Officially christened the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, SB 8 forces people in public buildings — from government offices to universities — to use multi-stall restrooms based on their “sex assigned at birth.” Transgender Texans are now the unwitting stars of a law from the “party of small government” that turns bathroom breaks into a Kafkaesque trial.
Here’s the real kicker: the law doesn’t even bother to tell schools or cities how to carry out this dumb idea. Institutions are only required to take “every reasonable step” to stop someone from taking a dump in the “wrong” restroom. It’s vague guidance that seems intentionally engineered to produce chaos and bigoted enforcement theater.
Sen. Mayes Middleton and Rep. Angela Orr sponsored the legislation in their respective chambers while Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law. And while the law’s advocates couched their support as concern for “privacy” and “safety,” it offers neither.
SB 8 is a thinly veiled attempt to score culture-war points at the expense of some of Texas’ most vulnerable residents. Legal analysts have called the law one of the most blatantly discriminatory pieces of legislation in recent memory.
The result? Cities such as Austin are already scrambling to undo the harm by installing gender-inclusive single-stall bathrooms — essentially taking state government’s scatology-obsessed politics and fixing it on the municipal dime. Because God knows city coffers are overflowing with cash.
Call the janitor, fetch a toilet plunger, bring a mop. The assclowns behind SB 8 have created a real mess — one Texans will be cleaning up for quite some time.
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