An Anti-Trans Measure in Odessa Tries to Turn Neighbor Against Neighbor
Odessa, Texas enacts a draconian new law targeting transgender people.
by Mira Lazine
When the west Texas city of Odessa adopted one of the most extreme anti-trans measures in the country this month it mimicked a legislative tactic that restricts abortion rights statewide and employed 11th-hour methods used elsewhere to discriminate against trans people.
The implications are just now starting to ripple statewide.
“It's the same tactic they've used to try to restrict abortion so heavily: weaponizing portions of the population against each other,” Elaina, a transgender resident of Lubbock, Texas, told Assigned Media. “It's been a painful wakeup call to have such a direct target painted on our backs.”
The Odessa measure bars trans people from both public and private restrooms that align with their gender identity; violations are considered a misdemeanor subject to a $500 fine. It goes much further, however, by seeking to establish a private individual’s right to file a civil lawsuit against anyone suspected of “not belonging” in a restroom and setting minimum awards of $10,000 for successful claimants.
“This policy really creates a lot of room for neighbors to betray neighbors based on somebody's appearance, not even their gender identity,” Ash Hall, a policy and advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Texas, said in an interview. Frivolous and costly lawsuits that could expose the city itself to liability, Hall said, could result.
The Odessa provision tries to replicate a state law that offers a reward of $10,000 to anyone who successfully sues a doctor or health care worker helping someone obtain an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
In a letter to the Odessa City Council, Hall and other ACLU officials said the ordinance violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex and race. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that transgender people are protected from discrimination under Title VII, although the makeup of the court has since changed.
In its letter, the ACLU said adoption of the ordinance also violated the Texas Open Meetings Act, which requires advance notice of council business. The city had billed the measure in advance as one that would affect “public buildings” but a last-minute substitution vastly expanded the ban to include all private buildings as well.
Elsewhere in the country, anti-trans forces have pushed through discriminatory 11th-hour amendments that were subject to little scrutiny. In Ohio this month, a school bathroom ban was added to an entirely unrelated measure on college credits during a lame-duck legislative session, offering little advance notice or opportunity to debate.
The Odessa ordinance “has definitely put our local community more on edge,” said Elaina, whose last name is not used here to protect her privacy.
“It was a tipping point for some people in the local community to go ahead and start really making plans to leave the state,” she said. “Our local community doesn't have much organizing power and has already been targeted in more subtle ways. I have no idea what I would do if something like this is passed here.”
Elaina, whose home is just two hours from Odessa, said she was worried that more Texas towns could enact similar policies. “This felt like them providing a blueprint for others to follow, and that was what concerned me the most.”
The Odessa ordinance does not stem from any documented problem or draw from existing research, the ACLU and others point out. The Odessa Police Department has received no reports of bathroom misconduct, according to the local news website Your Basin. A Williams Institute study from 2018 showed not only no relationship between state-level laws regulating transgender care and bathroom misconduct, it also found problems to be exceedingly rare and largely confined to cisgender individuals.
The ACLU has not said whether it will challenge the Odessa ordinance in court. While the group was “weighing all of our options,” Hall urged the broader community to offer help and solidarity to those in Odessa, and encouraged elected officials to speak out against discriminatory measures.
If the abortion rights debate is a gauge, a rush to pass bans or other restrictive legislation has not always represented the final chapter. After Dobbs in 2022, a number of states moved quickly to enact abortion restrictions, but not all are holding up. On Election Day, Missouri voters undid a ban on all abortions, adopting a state constitutional amendment that allows lawmakers to restrict abortion only past the point of a fetus’s viability.
Abortion rights advocates saw gains in six other states as well on Election Day.
author bio