AUSTIN (KXAN) — A bill filed in the Texas House of Representatives this week threatens to charge transgender Texans with a crime for identifying with a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth.
HB 3817 would make it a state jail felony for a person to “identify” to a state agency or private employer their “biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth.”
Gwen Howerton, an audience producer with Houston-based publication Chron, reported about the bill on Wednesday. In a Friday conversation with NewsNation affiliate KXAN anchor Will DuPree, she said that transgender rights advocates she spoke to called the bill “alarming.” She noted that the bill is unlikely to pass.
“[It] is really alarming when we look at not just the scope of what this bill is saying, but when we talk about the treatment of transgender individuals in prisons,” Howerton said. “As far as actual passage, I would say that the likelihood of it is really low.”
She said that the purpose of these bills may not be to actually pass, but to instead shift the conversation further towards anti-trans views.
“The Overton Window’s moved so much on trans rights and legislation impacting trans people that we’re seeing bills that a couple of years ago were dead-on-arrival are now coming back, and actually, advocates are saying are more dangerous now,” Howerton said.