Austin, TX – Concerned Women for America State Director Dana Hodges responds to a recent Texas Association of Business (TAB) press release which was in opposition to a potential safety and privacy bill in the Texas Legislature:
“Is money more important than personal safety and liberties? The Texas Association of Business (TAB) now appears to place profit over the safety of women and children. This week, TAB released a ‘study’ which purports that the State of Texas stands to potentially lose revenue if legislation is passed that would protect each citizen’s religious liberties and provide protection for women and children in public bathrooms and locker room facilities. However, their study seems to be based on supposition and lacking in real dollars-and-cents data.
TAB is swimming against the tide of public opinion on this. Proof can be found in the fact that the City of Houston, which has a majority liberal population, voted just last year by a margin of 61 percent to defeat an ordinance that would have forced genderless bathrooms to be the norm. Clearly public opinion in the state is on the side of keeping gendered public bathroom facilities as they have been for decades.
TAB must have also failed to notice the numerous cases, almost weekly, of sexual predators utilizing public bathrooms and locker rooms to harm women and children. This is fast becoming an epidemic.
As the leader of the state’s largest women’s public policy advocacy group, I am constantly being asked by mothers and grandmothers to fight for legislation that will protect their privacy, and I intend to do just that. It is time for the Texas Association of Business to listen to the women of Texas when we say “NO!” to men in women’s restrooms.”