Houston voted this week to scuttle a pro-transgender measure that opponents claimed would “allow men to freely go into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers,” a vote that didn’t sit well with The New York Times.
A “yearlong battle over gay and transgender rights” had “turned into a costly, ugly war of words,” and it concluded when “voters repealed an anti-discrimination ordinance that had attracted attention from the White House, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities,” the newspaper said of Tuesday’s referendum vote.
The Houston City Council originally passed the measure, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, in May 2014 by a vote of 11-6.
“The ordinance … would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — criteria not covered by federal anti-discrimination laws — especially ‘in city employment, city services, city contracting practices, housing, public accommodations and private employment,'” according to Ballotpedia.
“The ordinance would have also made prohibitions against discrimination based on sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, genetic information and pregnancy explicit in the city’s code,” it added. “Discrimination based on these characteristics was already prohibited by federal law.”
But opponents of the measure said the pro-transgender nature of the ordinance could let some people exploit the its pro-transgender language, and open the door for male predators to enter women’s bathrooms and locker rooms freely. Those opponents succeeded in putting the issue to a referendum vote after a long court battle.
On Tuesday, as they operated under the banner of “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms,” opponents succeeded in convincing Houston to shoot down the ordinance, as 60 percent of voters rejecting it, and only 39 percent said “yes.”
For the Times, the result of the vote signaled that Houston, whose three-term Democratic mayor Annise Parker is openly gay, may not be as progressive as some would think. “[T]he rejection signaled that the country’s fourth-largest city and one that has been run by Democrats for decades was more conservative than its national reputation as a gay-friendly city might suggest,” the Times’ coverage stated.
The report also cast supporters of the measure as mostly reasonable, and its opponents as perhaps a little over the top.
“Supporters said the ordinance was similar to those approved in 200 other cities,” the article said. “Opponents … [turned] the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators.”
“Opponents of the measure … said the ordinance had nothing to do with discrimination and was about the mayor’s gay agenda being forced on the city. They denied that they had any bias against gay people, and said the ordinance was so vague that it would make anyone who tried to keep any man from entering a women’s bathroom the subject of a city investigation and fine,” it added.
Supporters, for their part, simply failed to counter likely overblown claims that the ordinance would open the door to increases in predatory behavior, the Times added.
They “failed to counter campaign signs and ads by opponents that cast the ordinance as a safety issue. Opponents deployed signs with the slogan ‘No Men in Women’s Bathrooms’ and produced ads playing on fears that male sexual predators dressed as women would gain new freedom to enter women’s restrooms,” it reported.
The ordinance “says nothing specifically about whether men can use women’s restrooms,” the Times said, citing supporters of the measure.
