DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) – The 85th Texas legislative session is underway in Austin and the so-called “bathroom bill” is a hot-button issue yet again.
The Privacy Act Bill, authored by Senator Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, would require transgender individuals to use the bathroom associated with the gender they were born with while in school and publicly-owned places.
Amber Puga was raised in Fort Worth and was born male. She said she knew that she was born in the wrong body since she was six years old.
Puga said she was relentlessly beaten up in school for being too feminine while in the boy’s bathroom at school. If the bill passes, she said transgender youth will be in the line of fire.
“I am afraid that’s going to happen. They’ll be ostracized. It could also lead to online bullying. Sadly, like Leehla Alcorn, lead to an increased amount of suicides of transgender youth,” she said.
Puga said she’s also concerned that the bill would invalidate local LGBT-friendly laws.
“For ages, these laws have provided gay and transgender individuals from protection from discrimination based on our sexual orientation and gender identity. For a party that states that every decision should be in the local community this surely reeks of hypocrisy of the biggest kind,” she said.
Puga, who said she tries to educate people about the transgender community whenever possible, said that false information spread about them is the driving force behind the Privacy Act Bill.
“There has not been one case cited by Politifact or any other searches that shows transwoman doing anything illegal in a womens’ restroom or a transman doing anything else in a mens’ restroom,” she said.
Puga said in March, she plans on joining Equality Texas, GLAAD and members of the transgender community in Austin to protest the bill.
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