The Texas Capitol Has Armed Guards on Women’s Bathrooms

Armed guards JUST to keep a trans woman out of the bathroom.

3 min read

1 hour ago

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) put Highway patrolmen with weapons on the women’s bathrooms at the state Capitol. This is due to Senate Bill 8, the ‘Texas Women’s Privacy Act’, which only targets bathrooms in government facilities, private facilities aren’t included.

According to an article from the Texas Tribune, there’s no authority to enforce this. People mostly just lodge a compliant with the Attorney General’s office.

That law didn’t give the DPS this power.

Them magazine reported that a few activists tried to test the DPS officers; two trans men going into the men’s bathroom and one trans woman going into the women’s. The trans woman was the only one asking to show ID.

She said “It seemed like [the DPS] were not given guidance on how to enforce this bill or enforce this new policy that had been put in place.”

Again, there is no authority to enforce this. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) just decided to do this, it wasn’t given the power to. It doesn’t even sound like there’s any kind of presence on bathrooms in other public facilities in the state, just the state capitol.