A storm of big businesses, celebrities, and global investors have come out against Texas Senate Bill 6, which prohibits individuals from using public bathrooms and changing facilities opposite of their biological sex.  In reaction to the bill, liberal activists have argued that transgender Texans – that is, Texans who consider themselves members of the sex opposite their own – have been using bathrooms for years with no reports of them doing anything inappropriate in those spaces.  In order to test this claim, a survey of transgender incidents in Texas is reviewed.

One of the shortcomings of pro-transgender cases is that they consider only assault and rape as sex crimes.  However, sex crimes comprise not just rape and assault, but also voyeurism, indecent exposure, and violation of reasonable expectation of privacy.  In addition, anti-transgender arguments tend to focus on the harm males cause females but don't consider the ramifications of allowing females into male sex-segregated spaces and what happens to males.  The shortcomings of both sides are combined here to establish a stronger case in defense of S.B. 6.

In Texas, there are about 125,350 transgender adults in the general population and about 384 transgender inmates in the prison population.  That number will grow, since the pace of inmates claiming transgender status has increased by 400% since March of 2014.

There are three strong arguments that severely weaken the pro-transgender case that there have been no sex crimes by transgender individuals in Texas.  The first argument points to the U.S. Transgender Survey, which reports that 61% of the transgender Texans surveyed avoided using the restroom because they were afraid of confrontations.  In essence, that means that at least 61% of transgendered individuals can't pass as the opposite sex, or they wouldn't be worried about being confronted.  Furthermore, since it is much more difficult for males to pass as women than for females to pass as men, the lower bound for males that cannot pass exceeds 61%.  This argument demonstrates that even though many Texas cities have protected public accommodations rights for some time, most individuals have not frequented opposite-sex private spaces due to public non-acceptance.  It is the combination of public acceptance and non-discrimination laws that has determined the likelihood of opposite-sex public accommodation use, and consequently the likelihood of sex crime violations by individuals claiming to be transgender. 

The second argument ties into the first in that when comparing liberal states to conservative states that have non-discrimination ordinances, the liberal states show themselves to have had many more sex crime incidents by men disguised as women and females disguised as men in sex-segregated private spaces.  Furthermore, sex crimes in liberal states by men disguised as women did indeed increase after transgender non-discrimination ordinances were passed.  Such liberal strongholds include Oregon (Thomas Lee Benson, Susan Miller, Rose City T-Girls, Isabel Araujo), California (Jason Pomare, Rodney Peterson, UC Berkeley, Grossmont Center,  Richard Rendler), Washington (Taylor Beuhler, Mario Herrera, Norman Ballhorn, Robert Whitehead, Colleen Francis, Stanley Cuyler), and even Ontario (Christopher Hambrook, Darren Cottrelle, YMCA, Jacquelyne Laronde, Cecilia Valentine).

Conversely, in conservative states, sex crimes by people calling themselves transgender did not increase as a result of non-discrimination laws – that is, until 2016, when such people became emboldened to enter private sex-segregated spaces due to national momentum.  S.B. 6 acts as a roadblock to nullify the ramifications of this momentum, and to reject S.B. 6 further emboldens people to enter opposite-sex spaces.

The third argument reveals sex crime violations in Texas by individuals claiming to be transgender.  From 2010 to 2016, in private, sex-segregated spaces, there was one incident of a male entering uninvited into a female dorm; one incident of a male who is a serial child molester entering a women's restroom; over ten cases of six different males who committed offenses in a women's prison; one case of a male pressuring a female employee to fit him for a bra in a changing room, as well as three other changing room incidents; one case of a male assaulting a 50-year-old disabled woman in her home; one case of a male demanding housing from a women's shelter; one case of a female in a boy's restroom; and at least  four other cases of males in women's restrooms.  The year 2016 saw the most transgender-related incidents, with at least eleven sex crimes.  A more exhaustive list of Texas transgender offenses can be found here.

In Houston during 2010, Anthony Joseph Rizzatto, a man, was charged with a Class C assault of a disabled 50-year-old woman in the latter's home after questioning her over a census survey.  The following year, a male named Jennifer Gellar moved into a girls' dorm on the South West Texas Junior College Uvalde campus "to experience dorm life" but was later rejected by the university officials in part due to female students reporting that they would feel uncomfortable with a male in their dorm.  Previously, one of the female students filed a police report of harassment against Gellar because, as Gellar admits himself, he blew up and yelled at her over a school project.  There is a similar case in California, where Rodney Peterson disguised himself as a woman to enter the girls' dorm at Loma Linda University.

During July of the same year, Zyah Jonas exposed himself in Houston to a six-year-old girl and was charged with a third-degree felony for indecency with a child.  Also in December of 2011, a Macy's employee in San Antonio forbade a man from using a female dressing room, which led Macy's to fire the female employee on grounds of discrimination against "trans women."

One of the most serious violations happened in 2012, when serial child molester Paul Ray Witherspoon, who sexually assaulted two girls on different occasions, was reported to the police by a woman using a restroom in Dallas Parkland Hospital due to his male presence and ankle tracking device, which frightened her.  Under the Dallas 2002 ordinance, Witherspoon was allowed to be in the women's restroom, but why should laws be made to make it easier for a serial child molester to have access to a women's room?  Moreover, child sex offenders calling themselves transgender are not rare, as can be seen via the Texas cases of Vanessa Edwards, Levelle Reedy, Curtis Gene Copeland, and Dominique De Bose.  Other such child sex offenders include Adrian Wolf, Richard Rendler, Sydney Sezer, and Dillon Shadle.

In 2013, the DOJ got involved in a transgender discrimination case regarding a male named Roxann Joganik after the owner of the park demanded that Joganik leave the area.  Notably, the Texan R.V. Park in Athens has public accommodations such as restrooms and shower rooms open to its renters.  Why should anyone trust an autogynephiliac man in the women's restrooms?

In 2014, a man who considers himself a woman named Kylie Jack made a complaint on the Petti Coat Fair Facebook page because a female employee would not fit him for a bra at the store.  According to Austin Law at the time, the store counted as a public accommodation, thus according to Austin's non-discrimination ordinance, the female employee should be coerced to fit Kylie Jack for a bra.

In 2014, the Salvation Army of Dallas would not let a male who considers himself a woman named Jodielynn Wiley enter their women's shelter because Wiley is a man.  Wiley later filed a complaint against the Salvation Army for not housing him.  Vulnerable women shouldn't have to feel frightened because a male thinks he has the right to be included in their private space.  Moreover, there is a huge risk involved, such as was the case in two rapes of women in a women's shelter by a male calling himself a woman in Toronto.  Other cases saw males get females kicked out of women's shelters in Oregon and British Columbia.

While there are many cases of females who pretend to be males causing males problems in liberal states, only one stood out in Texas during March of 2016, when a girl who describes herself as gender fluid violated the expectation of privacy of boys by using the male restroom at her high school in Fort Worth.  The girl was photographed by a boy while she was washing her hands.  What transgender activists miss is that the separation of sexes in private spaces protects women who think they are males from males and protects males from false charges of rape or harassment. 

In May of 2016, a man who said he was representing himself as a woman used a ladies' changing room at a Mesquite Ross store.  A female customer became startled by the man's presence and went to tell the manager, but the manager told the woman that Ross allows people to use changing rooms of the opposite sex.  The following month, in the city of Cresson, the owners of the BBQ on the Brazos restaurant created a sign that hangs on the women's restroom door, stating: "No men allowed in the women's bathroom please."  The sign was created in reaction to a rodeo pickup man who occasionally visits the restaurant dressed as a woman.  Similarly, a man dressed as a woman entered the ladies' restroom at a Denton Senior Center, which disturbed the women present.

In October of 2016, Ricki Morgan was told by a local bar's manager that he could not use the ladies' restroom because a woman had made a complaint.  As was the case with the Rose City T-Girls and Norman Ballhorn, the combination of alcohol and men who think they are women going into a women's restroom is a terrible formula for women's safety and expectation of privacy.  In November of 2016, a male who identifies as a female named Jamie Lynn was confronted by an assistant principal regarding his biological sex due to a female student's complaint of him using the girls' restroom.

If even one female has an issue with a male in the restroom, her right of reasonable expectation of privacy should override the male's demands.

Women's prisons are another space that is supposed to be segregated by sex.  However, males have been included within incarcerated women's populations as well.  At least fourteen incarcerated Texas women who have experienced men who claim to be female in their units have spoken out.  Similarly, three inmates filed a court brief outlining their complaints against at least six males who consider themselves women being housed with female inmates.

In the brief, a male named Peter Langan was described by the women: "Mr. Langan has a fetish for dressing as a woman while having sex with women. He is allowed in shower areas, bathrooms, and any other intimate area of the prison, with the support of the Defendants and their government psychologist. Mr. Langan is a bank robber and a leader of a white supremacist group known as the Aryan Republican Army. He was allowed to transfer from a men's prison to Carswell where he not only can live out his fetishes, but has started a female white supremacist group."

Furthermore, Levon Edmonds was housed in the same cell as a male calling himself Linda Thompson.  "I was housed with male transgender Linda Thompson in Unit 1 North when he stripped all of his clothing off and walked around naked[.] ... Thompson explained to me that he had prostituted with men, but his sexual preference, he stated, 'are black women like you!' I was in shock because I had a false assumption that Thompson wanted to be a female and was attracted to men."

Based on the above arguments, Texas lawmakers should make it a priority to pass S.B. 6.