Alex PanischIt’s abundantly clear that what took down Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance was transphobia, with a hearty side dish of homophobia. While the HERO bill was meant to protect Houston residents from discrimination based on race, age, military status, disability, gender identity, and 10 other categories, opponents successfully made it about the idea that transpeople using bathrooms was somehow a threat to women.
Anybody who's given this any thought can see it’s patently specious, but its clear that most Houston voters did not do so.
Enter Seth Meyers. In his “A Closer Look” segment on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host took down the rhetoric used by the bill’s opponents and exposed the fundamental flaw behind it: nobody’s pretending to be trans to go into women’s bathrooms to harass women. Furthermore that’s already illegal.
Meyers tears it down beautifully so give it a look:
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