Texans frustrated with biological males accessing women’s restrooms can now do more than complain — they can contact the state’s “tip line.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton unveiled Wednesday a complaint form on his office website that allows residents to file a report when they see people using multiple-occupancy sex-segregated facilities that run counter to their biological sex in public schools and government buildings.
The form is designed to help state officials enforce Senate Bill 8, known as the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, that was signed into law in September by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.
“The Texas Women’s Privacy Act was passed to ensure that women and girls in Texas are protected from mentally ill men wanting to violate their basic right to privacy in places like restrooms and locker rooms,” Mr. Paxton, a Republican, said Wednesday in a statement. “It’s absolute insanity that action like this is even needed, but unfortunately in the day and age of radical leftism, it is.”
School districts, universities, shelters, prisons and other public venues that allow opposite-sex use of restrooms and other private facilities face fines of up to $125,000 per incident. The law went into effect Dec. 4.
The attorney general’s office said the law is intended to “stop woke state entities from allowing mentally ill men to invade women’s spaces.”
The measure includes exceptions for children under the age of nine accompanied by caregivers, as well as custodians, law enforcement and those rendering medical assistance.
“I encourage anyone who believes a state agency or political subdivision has violated SB 8 to submit a complaint via the form on my website,” said Mr. Paxton. “Together, we will uproot and bring justice to any state agency or political subdivision that opens the door for men to violate women’s privacy, dignity, and safety.”
The measure’s opponents, including most Democrats and LGBTQ advocates, called the bill a solution in search of a problem, saying the authors could cite no examples of harm being done by transgender individuals using restrooms that align with their gender identity.
“This cruel, unnecessary bill leaves transgender and intersex Texans vulnerable to repeated, invasive gender tests; harassment; humiliation; and even violence simply for trying to go about their daily lives,” the Texas Freedom Network said in a Sept. 24 statement.
Twenty states, including Texas, have enacted so-called “bathroom bans” preventing opposite-sex use of private facilities in public schools. Fifteen of those states have also extended the ban to some government buildings, according to the Movement Advancement Project map.
