Law Assignment

A Critical Review on Texas Senate Bill 6 (TX SB6)

Finally, the Texas Senate approved Senate Bill 6 (SB6), popularly referred to as the bathroom bill, on March 8, 2017. The bill is supposed to be passed on to the TXHS- Texas House of Representatives. The bill’s chief sponsor was Senator Lois Kolkhorst’s (R), and the proposed law will decide which bathrooms or restrooms people should use based on their sex as indicated on their birth certificates (Rhodes and Stewart 908). The senator argued that it was essential to uphold a consistent, statewide benchmark instead of a piecemeal of laws. S.B. 6 was introduced due to the dilemma about which bathrooms or restrooms transgender people, lesbians or gays should use while in a public setting (Wulczyn et al. 304). This paper will highlight the arguments for and against this bill and then explore the contentious issues raised by Texans about the proposed law.

The LGBT advocates have publicly condemned the passing of the SB6 and have threatened to file a lawsuit should the bill be promulgated in the Texas Laws. Hundreds of LGBT supporters have promised to protest outside the Texas governor’s home, claiming that the bill threatens to violate the fundamental rights of the LGBT community. As of Tuesday of March 14, 2017, more than 3000 LGBT advocates had reported on Facebook that they intended to show up for the protest. The goal of the protest urged the congressional officials to consider rejecting anti-the bathroom bills. The bills would humiliate transgender people by forcing them to publicly confirm their sex before using public restrooms (Rhodes and Stewart 905). The LGBT’s concern is that the federal government premises would be restricted from building transgender-kindly washrooms, and counties and cities would be barred from constructing bathrooms that are friendly to transgender people.

Paragraph (a): The state LGBT advocates the SB6 place transgender individuals in jeopardy without making the lives of cisgender persons any safer, which even exacerbates gender non-compliant cisgender people’s safety. Besides, several research studies have worked hard to track the occurrence of crimes in restrooms since the promulgation of various laws protecting transgender individuals and have established that there has not been any significant change in the frequency of offences (Rhodes and Stewart 905).

Other legal experts have confirmed that there are documented incidences of transgender people assaulting cisgender individuals in public toilets. As a matter of fact, more Republican politicians have been charged with rape cases in bathrooms compared to the transgender population. One of the largest U.S. studies carried out by the NCTE in December 2015 concluded that less than one per cent of people reported being sexually harassed in a public washroom for being transgender. Twelve per cent said they had been verbally assaulted in a public toilet, while another one per cent said they had been physically abused for being transgender. The NCTE had acknowledged that in its study that this research was carried out before a single bathroom bill had been passed.

Hence the argument that if transgender individuals are allowed to utilize the bathroom facilities that match their gender status, men will abuse the policy by entering womewomen’slets to assault females sexually is baseless (Rhodes and Stewart 909). Even if the state allows transgender people to use bathrooms coinciding with their gender status, sexual harassment remains totally illegal. Furthermore, no evidence of letting trans individuals go to the bathroom that matches their gender identity would result in more sexual assault cases.

Paragraph (b): If LGBT advocates invoke the principle of logic and ethical theory to fight the SB6, the battle can be easily won. To start with, there is never such an article in the constitution that gives an individual a right to use another peperson’soilet without the owowner’sconsent. The only logical way out of this problem of bathroom bills is to allow the bathroom facility owner to decide who to and who not to use it. ItIt’sn issue of property rights. Any other redress regardless of whether they ensure a ‘c’rtain’ ‘afety automatically violates the toilet owowner’sights (Rockett 315). What that implies is that transgender persons have the right to use any restroom of their choice without government intrusion, as long as the owner has no problem with the individuals using them. It also implies that cisgender people can be barred from using toilets in scenarios where the property owner fails to consent.

One illegal aspect of the legislative ofofficials’athroom bill to impose unjust laws forces everyone to obey them. President George Washington (Rockett 318) once said, “t”e government is a powerful force to reckon.” “oercing public bathroom proprietors to bar trans persons from using their facilities is illegal, just as it is unlawful to allow cisgender individuals to access washrooms of their choice when the toilet operator has reservations. Both parties have to cease promoting ordinances that violate the property privileges of toilet possessors. The LGBT community through the lawyers frustrate the efforts to promulgate SB6 into law by arguing that leveraging on the gogovernment’sorce to violate property owowners’ights is intrinsically immoral. It constitutes an inherent contempt of the legal structure. The Texas state was formed to safeguard property constitution rights (Besley and Ghatak, 4529).

Taking advantage of the legislative bills to infringe on property rights is a criminal use of the federal government prerogatives. Whereas it might appear unfair that the bathroom bill favours cisgender persons, their rights are not being infringed on, since there is no such concept as a right to access someone elseelse’slet without his or her permission. In the absence of a law that bars willing parties from entering into contracts, there are high chances that the market would create solutions to the problem. For instance, business operators don’don’td transgender people accessing the restrooms of their choice, even though others would not. Business

owners who don’don’td having transgender customers using their washrooms would optimize their business transactions with the transgender population and those who advocate for the rights of transgender (Levine 789). Even though they may also risk losing the business of people who would not like to do business with entrepreneurs who approve of the transgender use of toilets of their choice.

In conclusion, the state of Texas has just approved the SB6, and if it gets approved by Congress, then the bathroom bill would be passed into law. The bill is controversial, particularly because the LGBT community feels that it infringes on the rights of the transgender population. The best course of action would be to apply the property rights argument because it would help solve public busibusinesses’hroom bill concerns. However, it might not address the problem of access to bathrooms in government institutions. Where legislative bills are involved, all people must be equally treated regardless of gender identity!