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Texas State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez said Thursday, Aug,. 28, during debate on anti-trans bathroom bill SB 8 that she has been questioned over using the women’s restroom in the state Capitol because of the way she looks.

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In a vote that puts scores of women at risk, the Texas House of Representatives today (Thursday, Aug. 28) passed the “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” aka a discriminatory and anti-transgender “bathroom bill,” the Texas Tribune has reported.

Senate Bill 8, which passed the House on a vote of 86-45, restricts bathroom use in government-owned buildings, public schools and universities on the basis of “sex assigned at birth,” allowing no exceptions for transgender inmates in prisons and jails.

It also prohibits transgender women from accessing women’s domestic violence shelters. (There is an exception for those “assigned male at birth” who are under the age of 17 and the child of a women also receiving services at the shelter.)

Institutions where violations of SB 8 occur can be fined $25,000 for a first offense and up to $125,000 for repeat offenses. That makes it, the Texas Tribune reports, “the most financially punitive bathroom bill in the country.”

House staff members and officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety cleared the gallery of visitors after those in the area interrupted the proceedings several times by shouting insults that the bigots who supported SB 8.

Republican lawmaker Angelia Orr of Itasca sponsored the bill in the House. When questioned by opponents, Orr said details on enforcing the bathroom ban would be up to individual agencies. But when the bill was heard in committee, the Tribune noted, Orr said enforcement would be based on how a person looks.

Rep. Jessica González of Dallas, the Democrat who chairs the Texas Legislature’s LGBTQ Caucus and who is NOT transgender, pointed out that she has been accused of going into the wrong restroom in the Texas Capitol — which already has its own anti-trans bathroom policy in place — because of the way she looks.

And Rep. Erin Zwiener, a Democrat from Driftwood and another LGBTQ Caucus member, asked, “Who do you think is more uncomfortable in the bathroom today? A cis woman, or a trans woman wondering if she’s about to be harassed?”

SB 8 has already passed in the Senate but now must go back to that chamber for approval of changes made in the House. Lawmakers have until this second special session ends on Sept. 13 to get it approved.

— Tammye Nash