Adobe Stock
Audio By Carbonatix
When the Texas Legislature passed a law restricting the use of private spaces, such as a bathroom, to one gender, LGBTQ+ advocates warned that complications would arise.
The legislature passed Senate Bill 8 in August, and the law went into effect on Dec. 4. The bill requires public facilities, such as universities, courts and government buildings, to implement policies enforcing segregation based on biological sex in spaces like bathrooms and dorms. But the narrow definitions of male and female, and the lack of guidance on implementing the policy, have led to early problems, according to a recent report from The North Texas Daily.
University of North Texas Graduate Student Lhexa D’Avignon started her spring semester with a notice for a disciplinary investigation. According to an email shared with the Observer, D’Avignon was notified of the meeting with the University Integrity and Compliance office in December, when she was told she needed to arrange a time to be interviewed “as part of an investigation.” The email did not further clarify what the investigation pertained to.
D’Avignon declined the Observer’s request for an interview, although she did confirm that she is transgender and also shared a recording of her meeting with university officials.
At the start of the recording, UNT Compliance Officer Clay Simmons tells D’Avignon that the university “received a report of an allegation of a violation of a policy” that named the graduate student. Simmons clarifies the new bathroom policy, informing D’Avignon that she may use unisex, single-occupancy campus restrooms. According to The North Texas Daily, there are 156 single-occupancy restrooms across the thousand-acre campus.
“We just wanted to talk to you about it to make sure you’re aware of it, so that you’re aware of what the rules are around here,” said Simmons.
But as D’Avignon presses the university official, it becomes clear that the university hasn’t fully worked through how best to handle this new policy. At one point, D’Avignon, who also serves as a university teaching fellow, asks whether she will be investigated as a faculty member or as a student. Simmons answers faculty, but the details on what actual penalties look like are slim.
Then D’Avignon pushes against SB 8’s definition of female or male, which defines gender by organs that create sperm and organs that carry eggs meant to be fertilized.
“How do you propose going about finding the information on this reproductive system?” D’Avignon asks.
“I don’t,” says Simmons.
“Then how can you carry out this policy?” D’Avignon replies.
Ultimately, Simmons tells D’Avignon that she is not being formally investigated, and adds that the university will not be doing “any kind of medical exams on anyone” to determine whether their genitals match the bathroom they are using. As reported by The North Texas Daily, D’Avignon is a member of a Denton-based transgender and nonbinary group known as “The Space,” and following her meeting with the university, she warned the group about the new policy.
The University of North Texas did not respond to a list of questions from the Observer on the topic, but a university spokesperson told the Daily that UNT students and faculty are expected to comply with university policies or else face “disciplinary action.”
The Problem With SB 8
From SB 8’s inception, LGBTQ+ advocates have warned that the bill would result in state-funded institutions being forced to enact policy despite “an absence of information,” as D’Avignon put it, or else enforce unprecedented privacy violations.
“The mechanism of enforcement is not outlined in the law at all, and what was specified is very vague and up to interpretation,” said Naveen Farrani, a spokesperson with Equality Texas. “What we’ve seen so far is that there is no consistency across institutions about how SB 8 will be enforced. … Is it reasonable for a university to investigate a person’s private medical information? No. And UNT thus far has acted in a way that makes it seem like they think that is not appropriate.”
But Farrani isn’t pleased with the solution university officials offered D’Avignon either, which would have her walk down four flights of stairs and into a different building to reach the unisex bathroom closest to her office. While D’Avignon was not formally investigated or disciplined under the new bathroom policy, Farrani believes the warning follows a pattern of intimidation and shame serving as an “undercurrent” in anti-transgender and anti-queer legislation that aims to “scare us out of existence.”
Because SB 8 went into effect on Dec. 4, right before finals and the holiday break, Farrani also expects to see more stories like D’Avignon’s as universities are deputized to enforce the new bathroom policy. In December, KSAT reported that several University of Texas at San Antonio students were forced to move dorm rooms after SB 8 went into effect because the dormitory’s bathroom layout did not ensure male and female students were separated.
On Dec. 17, Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a tip line where individuals can report violations of the SB 8 bathroom policy. Paxton, like many legislators who have upheld the law, emphasized that its passage is meant to ensure women’s safety when using the restroom.
Bans similar to SB 8 that have been passed in other states have ultimately harmed women, though, often reinforcing stereotypes about gender performance and boiling things down to whether or not someone looks woman enough. Cisgender women have reported bathroom-based harassment in Boston and Arizona, resulting in confrontations between the women and security guards or law enforcement officers.
In each case, the woman was incorrectly accused of being a man due to their masculine appearance.
“This is what we were trying to sound the alarm about,” Farrani said. “[SB 8] deputizes random people to act like little bathroom vigilantes and basically transvestigate people, and visually discriminate against them. The consequence of this bill is that it emboldens any enforcement agencies or individuals to discriminate just based on how people look, and when it’s laid out that way, it’s like, wow, that’s bad.”
