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In a 21-10 vote
almost along party lines, the Republican-dominated Senate gave
preliminary approval to the Texas Privacy Act.
The bill would require people to use restrooms that correspond
with the gender on their birth certificate, not the gender with
which they identify.
Its backers said it is a common-sense approach to provide safety
and keep sexual predators out of bathrooms.
After final approval, seen as a formality and expected on
Wednesday, the bill goes to the Republican-controlled House,
where analysts say its chances of passage are slim due to
concern about the legislation's potential economic impact.
Allowing transgender people to use public bathrooms
corresponding to their gender identity rather than their birth
gender has become the latest flashpoint in the long U.S. battle
over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.
"It is about a privacy issue for us women, for boys, for girls,"
the bill's sponsor, Republican Senator Lois Kolkhorst, told the
body.
Democratic Senator John Whitmire said the bill was fatally
flawed and would force transgender people like a bald
transgender man with a beard to use a woman's bathroom. He added
that there are some 30 statutes in Texas law that punish sexual
predators.
"We don't need your bill to prosecute them," he said in Senate
debate.
The bill is similar to one enacted last year in North Carolina.
That law prompted economic boycotts and the loss of sporting
events that were estimated to have cost the state hundreds of
millions of dollars.
In January, the Texas Association of Business released a study
which said that if the legislation were enacted, it could cost
Texas as much as $8.5 billion in the state's gross domestic
product and the loss of more than 185,000 jobs in the first year
alone.
Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Tea Party
Christian who is a prominent backer of the Texas bill, has
challenged the survey.
Nearly 70 businesses, including some of the state's biggest
employers such as American Airlines Group Inc, sent a letter to
Republican leaders this month asking them to reject the bill on
the grounds that it would "legalize discrimination."
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz)
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