House Committee leaves trans restroom ban bill pending after 2 hours of testimony
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — An anti-trans bill that failed to pass twice in 2025 remains pending in the Texas House of Representative’s State Affairs Committee Friday, after members heard just two hours of testimony.
Senate Bill 8 is near-identical to SB 240 and SB 7 from earlier this year. It would ban people from entering sex-segregated private spaces, such as family violence shelters and restrooms, if their assigned sex at birth doesn’t match the space’s designation.
A fiscal note on the bill, written by the state’s Legislative Budget Board, said that the board believes SB 8’s budgetary impact would be “insignificant” but also can’t be estimated for a lack of data.
“The fiscal implications of the bill to units of local government cannot be determined due to the number of cases of noncompliance with the bill’s provisions among political subdivisions being unknown,” the note reads.
Committee chair Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, said at the start of the Friday morning meeting that the committee would “do our best to alternate witnesses registered for and against the bill.” He added that there was a time constraint that limited public comments on SB 8 to two hours.
Dallas Rep.: Bill ‘does nothing to make us safer’
King recognized Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, to speak on the bill prior to it being laid out by bill author Rep. Angelia Orr, R-Hillsboro.
“We’re here again debating an unnecessary and unpopular culture war talking point: it’s a bathroom bill. Even though we thoroughly debated the bathroom bill in 2017, and it was defeated twice [in 2025] in the regular session and the special session, we find ourselves back to beat a dead horse upon the request of no one,” Anchía said.
He recalled invited testimony from police chiefs, which was heard by the committee during prior attempts. The Dallas Representative also asked his colleagues if they would vote for a bill to ban Bigfoot.
“We had the police chiefs from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, from law enforcement organizations across the state, testify against the bathroom bill, telling us exactly this: That they have found no known incidents of bathroom assaults performed by men posing as transgender women, zero,” Anchía said. “As responsible legislators, if you propose a bill to address a criminal justice concern, wouldn’t it be first important to determine if there’s an actual problem?”
He also said that over 1,000 businesses have registered opposition to the bill. Business lobbying group Texas Competes provided a written statement in opposition to SB 8.
“Do we want our tourists to be attacked by self-appointed potty police or vigilantes out there who decide a person is not a woman or not a man and want to see proof?” Anchía asked. “This has happened in other states, we do have evidence of this. Women have been accosted by men in the bathroom and harassed because of misguided belief about their others about their gender.”
Hillsboro Rep.: Bill is ‘common sense’
Orr laid out the bill before the committee.
“Texans across the state are increasingly concerned that their daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers and themselves are losing the basic expectation of privacy in spaces traditionally separated by sex,” she said. “This bill addresses this concern by ensuring that men cannot enter bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, sleeping quarters and family violence shelters and other private spaces dedicated to women and girls.”
Orr noted that the bill would only apply to public entities, and not to privately owned facilities.
“Public facilities owned or operated by political subdivisions or state agencies must designate multiple occupancy private spaces based on biological sex, female and male are defined by reproductive function,” she said.
She also noted the bill doesn’t apply to children younger than 9 years old, individuals with disabilities, caregivers and first responders entering during an emergency.
SB 8 would also require the state to incarcerate transgender people based on their assigned sex at birth. This would subject those inmates to heightened sexual violence, according to the Williams Institute, which could construe cruel and unusual punishment based on identity.
“SB 8 is common sense. It restores clear boundaries, protects vulnerable women and children and ensures Texas law respects privacy and safety and sex specific spaces,” she said.
Committee members questions Orr
Committee member Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, asked the first questions of Orr. He first asked what problem the bill was trying to solve and if she had examples, which she said she did not have.
“There seems to be issues where where schools and other places overlook the fact that women are biologically different and deserve their own privacy when they’re changing, showering, using the restroom, and by establishing a policy to make it clear, then that gives the opportunity for a remedy for a resident of Texas to call out that entity for not providing that definition and boundary for them.
He also asked Orr to respond to a complaint raised in prior public comments — was the goal of SB 8 to exclude transgender people from public life? Orr quickly answered no. Turner also asked her about who would “confirm” a restroom user’s sex.
“It would be the person that feels like their biological sex is not being protected in a restroom of their sex. And so if someone is using the restroom and they see that perhaps it happens in a workplace over and over again, and people look the other way, then they can raise that complaint to the facility,” Orr responded.
Following a complaint, the facility manager would have three days to make sure the sex-segregated space has “appropriate signage,” she said.
“How would they address it?” Turner asked.
“By making sure the signage is up and making sure that it’s the spaces is protected and women and men know that they have separate facilities to use,” Orr responded.
Vice Chair Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, asked Orr about the bill’s definitions for “male” and “female.” The Texas Legislature passed a bill creating those definitions earlier this year, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed.
However, SB 8 does not use Texas’ definitions and instead uses Montana’s, Orr said. The bill uses the same definitions as it did when it was SB 240, which was written prior to Texas’ definitions becoming law.
“Noticeably absent is intersex individuals. How does this apply to them?” Hernandez asked.
“I think it depends on if you recognize whether there are two biological sexes,” Orr replied.
Orr, responding to a follow up question from Hernandez, said that intersex people could be accommodated by single-use restrooms, but noted that the bill doesn’t require intersex people to use single-occupant restrooms.
“How would someone know whether an individual is a male or a female, just by the way they look?” Hernandez asked. Orr said yes.
“The purpose of the bill is to ensure that biological females and biological males that have to share a multiple use space have that space assigned and dedicated to their use,” Orr said.
“I understand your stated purpose of the bill. I think there’s a problem with enforcement guidance, and we can’t go just by the way someone looks and making a complaint that a person doesn’t look like a man or a woman,” Hernandez said.
She also criticized how a complainant would know a child was younger than 9 years old.
Neutral public comments express concerns
Two groups registered as neutral on the bill, but testified to concerns with aspects of SB 8. These included the Texas Council on Family Violence and the Texas Hospital Association
“The focus of the bill is clearly on restrooms, locker rooms and similar facilities, not the emergency department or patient care units,” said a Texas Hospital Association spokesperson. “Our concern is simply that the current definition of multi-occupancy private space is written broadly enough that it could be read to cover patient care spaces where patients are often in a state of undress, separated by curtains.”
Public comments: What the opposition said
The exact numbers of how many people registered to testify Friday hasn’t been made available online yet. However, the bills’ opponents have consistently outnumbered their supporters during the prior hearings this year.
The opposition to SB 8 said that the law would discriminate against gender diverse people, in particular transgender women, while also subjecting all restroom users to heightened scrutiny.
The first public comment on SB 8 came from an Austin-area educator, who said they’ve testified against similar bills for nearly a decade.
“The first time I did this, I was a teenager in high school, and now not only am I an adult, but an educator as well,” they said. “I was so scared coming to the Capitol as a teen by myself, having to be vulnerable to a room of grown adults more than twice my age, and now I cannot help but feel scared and upset because we are still here talking about this same subject almost 10 years later, and my students may have to go through the same struggles I have gone through.”
A transgender woman speaking against SB 8 said that this would limit where she could go with her family, and would make her life harder and more dangerous.
“My wife and I are hoping to start a family soon, and some of my fondest memories growing up are from going to the county fairs with my parents, my little brother. I’m sure some of you all have those same memories,” she said. “If this bill passes, it means my kids won’t have that memory. They’ll still go to the fair, but one of their moms will be missing. I will be missing.”
A mental health counselor, who said he has worked with perpetrators of sexual assault in group therapy settings, testified that it wouldn’t make sense to label people with a particular variety of genitals as potential sexual predators.
“[Perpetrators] commit sexual assaults as a result of a brand of masculinity that promotes sex as a competition and sexual partners as the prize. This hyper masculine culture that leads to sexual assault cannot be further from how trans and non binary individuals live their lives,” he said.
He added that gender diverse people are one-and-a-half times more likely to be sexually assaulted compared to cisgender women.
Travis County Tax Assessor Celia Israel testified to the committee about what SB8 could mean for counties and municipalities. She previously served in the Texas House for nine years.
“Every session and every special session I served in meant a tearful, painful, divisive battle that intended to do harm to trans Texans, and every battle left a mark on those across-the-aisle relationships that used to be common,” Israel said.
“[SB 8] is billed directly to cities, counties and schools and other political subdivisions. Think about what that means in practice, our tax offices, our courthouses, our public libraries, our schools could be hit with exorbitant fines daily.”
Travis County Constable for Precinct 3 Stacy Suits also testified that his office isn’t interested in “being the potty police.” He also testified that there hasn’t been any restroom complaints during his service.
Suits also said that his child is a transgender man and he worries for their safety.
Groups that spoke in opposition included the Gender Liberation Movement, the Transgender Education Network of Texas, ACLU-Texas and the Lesbian and Gay Peace Officers Association.
Public comments: What supporters said
Megan Benton, strategic policy associate for Texas Values Action, was the first supporter of SB 8 to speak. She said the group was “the largest statewide Christian law and policy organization in Texas.” It also brought multiple other employees to speak in support of the bill.
“This legislation is critical to protecting women and girls in the state of Texas and preserving our dignity. This is common sense policy. When I use a gym locker room changing facility or restroom, I want to be confident that the space is for women only,” Benton said.
Benton testified that she once saw someone who she believed was male in a women’s restroom at the Capitol. She said she then waited outside until another person, who she believed was female, entered the restroom. She then followed that other person into the restroom.
Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D-Laredo, asked her how she knew the person’s sex. Benton replied that she had been testifying at a Senate State Affairs hearing and “recognized the purse” of the person she believed to be male.
A supporter of the bill referenced an incident she said occurred nearly 30 years ago, when a cisgender man entered a multi-stall showering room she was using. She didn’t say if the showers were sex-segregated or were coed, nor where this occurred. Some colleges in Texas have communal showering facilities.
Teresa Thomas, the Texas State Director for Moms in America, referenced a similar incident involving a college shower while she was a graduate student at Texas Tech. She said that as she was taking a shower, a man entered another shower stall with a female RA. The two proceeded to have “sexual play,” she said.
“I had to stay in a shower for 40 minutes until they got done. This was repeated and repeated over the time I was there,” she said.
Other supporters did not reference first-hand accounts that happened to them, or referenced incidents outside of the bill’s scope.
Cindi Castilla, of the anti-abortion group Texas Eagle Forum, said she doesn’t like using single-use restrooms out of fear that a man might have touched things in the room.
“You go to wash your hands, and you’re turning on and off the spigot in most cases, and the person before you, if it was a man … women don’t they don’t come in contact with their body when they use the restroom, and men do,” she said. “I don’t want to touch, I don’t want to touch the same things. It’s germs that are packed away into clothes.”
Another supporter, who said God sent “a flood because you tore down the Confederate plaque,” spoke about his religious beliefs.
“We got lines in the sky. We got blood moons. We got tsunamis. We got all kinds of stuff, all kinds of signs,” he said. “What do you think he’s going to do about these kids, where [Matthew 18:6] says, ‘put a millstone around your neck and drop you into the sea?'”
A representative of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention also testified to why her denomination’s beliefs would require SB 8.
Additionally, King told one of the bill’s supporters to not make threats during the hearing.
What’s next
The committee ended public comments just after 10 a.m., with a crowd of attendees who registered to give testimony left unheard. King said that the public comment portal for SB 8 will remain open until 5 p.m. Monday.
The committee did not vote on the bill and instead left it as pending. During prior sessions, it did not consider the bill, which makes it unclear as to how the committee may vote.
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