Shocking anti-trans ad claims gender neutral toilets enable child abuse

With anti-discrimination laws in Houston, Texas due to be voted on next month, the measure’s opponents have released a shocking new advert, misleadingly informing residents that gender-neutral toilets will lead to child molestation.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) protects 15 different characteristics in the city, including gender identity, and the 40-second ad by ‘Campaign for Houston’ claims it enables sexual predators to access any bathroom they like.

“Any man could enter a woman’s bathroom at any time simply by claiming to be a woman that day,” the voiceover says. “No one is exempt; even registered sex offenders could follow women or young girls into the bathroom and if a business tried to stop them they’d be fined.

“Protect women’s privacy. Prevent danger.”

As The Washington Post succinctly points out:

What goes too far is this bigoted ad and its perversion of the facts. It is an outright lie to say “any man at any time could enter a woman’s bathroom at any time simply by claiming to be a woman that day.” Such a statement reveals a willful ignorance of what it means to be transgender. In addition, the so-called “bathroom ordinance” people completely ignore a rather specific Houston law that has been on the books since 1972.

According to Code 1968, § 28-42.6; Ord. No. 72-904, § 2, 6-2-72, “It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly and intentionally enter any public restroom designated for the exclusive use of the sex opposite to such person’s sex without the permission of the owner, tenant, manager, lessee or other person in charge of the premises, in a manner calculated to cause a disturbance.” In short, if you’re in the bathroom for any purpose other than relieving yourself, you’re breaking the law. And if you’re in there to molest children or commit rape, you’re also a monster.

November’s poll comes after the Texas Supreme Court, somewhat unbelievably, ordered Houston city council to either repeal its anti-discrimination laws or put them up for popular vote following a legal challenge.

In This Article: