Anti-LGBT Groups Ramp Up Transphobia Before Houston Vote
Houstonians go to the polls Nov. 3, where they鈥檒l be voting for a mayor and also on whether to repeal the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (; PDF may not load in some browsers), which far-right anti-LGBT groups have depicted as a license for male predators posing as women to invade public rest rooms.
Last month, the Texas Supreme Court suspended the ordinance, which meant that the Houston City Council had to either repeal HERO or place it on the November ballot for popular approval. The City Council as Proposition 1.
The ordinance, in April 2014 by Houston Mayor Annise Parker and passed by the City Council, has faced a storm of contentious opposition, petitions and a lawsuit initiated by right-wing groups and pastors because of its inclusion of the phrases 鈥渟exual orientation and gender identity.鈥�
Texas is one of at least 20 states without a statewide law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender, although some Texas cities have passed their own local ordinances. HERO extends non-discrimination protections to 鈥渃ity employment, city services, city contracting practices, housing, public accommodations, and private employment.鈥� Religious organizations are exempt.
Despite that exemption, right-wing groups have unleashed a barrage of vitriol based on their fear that transgender people could use public restrooms that correspond to the gender with which they identify. The groups assert that HERO聽endangers women and children because male sexual predators could claim they鈥檙e trans women, and thus are entitled to use women鈥檚 restrooms and locker rooms under the ordinance, in order to seek out and attack victims. That scenario is perpetuated by right-wing groups (and some radical feminists) to gin up fear of trans people and further marginalize them.
Trans people (particularly trans women of color) are one of the most victimized communities in America, in housing and employment, harassment, and stunning levels of hate violence. Already this year, have been murdered in the United States.
, one of the groups involved in the fight against HERO, is one of the purveyors of the bathroom-attack myth. The group was launched with an eight-city 鈥淔aith, Family, Freedom Tour,鈥� which on Aug. 13. Sponsors of the tour include Christian pseudo-historian , former congressman Tom DeLay, and the Texas Eagle Forum鈥檚 Cathie Adams, who that same-sex marriage would lead to the end of America.
Campaign for Houston appears to be the brainchild of long-time right-wing anti-LGBT activist Steven Hotze, president of the Conservative Republicans of Texas. The former chairman of the Harris County, Texas, GOP, Jared Woodfill (now a spokesman for Campaign for Houston), of 鈥渘umerous pro-family organizations,鈥� including Campaign for Houston.
who has made some dubious claims鈥攈e has said, for example, that men who have lost a testicle to disease or injury have trouble reading maps and doing math鈥攁lso was behind the so-called Campaign for Houston Straight Slate in 1985. Louie Welch, who ran for mayor of Houston on the Straight Slate, has that the best way to control AIDS would be to 鈥渟hoot the queers.鈥� Although he later apologized, his vitriol proved profitable, and he raised some $70,000 for his campaign the following day. Hotze seems to have recycled part of the name of that campaign for this latest anti-LGBT crusade.
Hotze has a long history of LGBT-bashing, over the years that homosexuals 鈥渞ecruit children,鈥� an assertion that can on the Conservative Republicans for Texas website. He that LGBT people are going to try to teach anal sex to kids in school.
Earlier this month, Hotze HERO would allow 鈥減erverted men鈥� be 鈥渁s strange, as weird, as perverted, as deviant as you want to be.鈥� At the Houston launch of the Faith, Family, and Freedom event, , claimed that 鈥淪atanic cults鈥� were behind the 鈥渉omosexual movement,鈥� and demanded that LGBT people be hounded out of Houston. 鈥淒rive them out of our city,鈥� he said. 鈥淪end them back to San Francisco.鈥�
Campaign for Houston also that claims the anti-discrimination bill will open doors to sexual predators. The ad asserts that 鈥渁ny man at any time could enter a woman鈥檚 bathroom simply by claiming to be a woman that day鈥� and 鈥渆ven registered sex offenders could follow women or a young girl into the bathroom and if a business tried to stop him, they鈥檇 be fined.鈥� The ad urges people to vote 鈥渘o鈥� on the Proposition 1 鈥渂athroom ordinance,鈥� as the camera, shooting in lurid black and white, follows a little girl into a public bathroom stall. Next up is a man shown emerging from a neighboring stall and entering the girl鈥檚 stall.
The Campaign for Houston鈥檚 , released in August, is similar. It features a young woman who 鈥淸t]his ordinance will allow men to freely go into women鈥檚 bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers. That is filthy, that is disgusting, and that is unsafe鈥� (hear the full ad ). In put out by anti-LGBT group , a trans woman is depicted in a cartoon as a muscled, balding man, complete with makeup, in a women鈥檚 locker room.
The last few days before the election will surely see more of the same from anti-LGBT forces in Texas.
