Texas looks to be the next battleground in the debate over whether transgender Americans should be allowed to use the bathroom associated with the sex they claim, rather than their birth sex. The Texas Tribune recently publishedan analysis of the political context surrounding the controversy. The Tribune notes that the transgender bathroom issue offers a “clean win, politically speaking,” for many Texas Republican politicians. That means that, almost everyone offended by the GOP’s rhetoric on the subject is already on the opposing side of the argument anyway. Which is to say, there are very few transgender Republicans.
So pols like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have very little political capital to lose by pushing the issue. The call for letting trans people decide which bathroom to use has become a stand-in for what many conservatives in the state see as a larger threat to their way of life.
In today’s Texas that makes the topic a political winner.