DALLAS — At Danny Jones Junior High School, 12-year-old Roxy Castro is constantly calculating.

How much water has she had today?

Is she really that thirsty?

How much time until the bell rings to go home?

These kinds of questions will save her from the anxiety of a place she’s always trying to avoid: the bathroom.

Because Roxy is a transgender girl, her school does not allow her to use the regular girls’ bathroom. Instead, she has to use a separate bathroom on one side of the school. Now that she has entered junior high, her peers are starting to ask more questions about why she can’t use the girls’ bathroom like the rest of them. At times, her classes are far from the one she’s allowed to use, and it’s difficult to sprint back and forth without being late. If she doesn’t drink too much water, it’s a situation she has figured out how to circumvent.

Unfortunately, this is a specific kind of stress many transgender people know all too well. Last week the culture war over bathrooms played out in Houston. Voters in the fourth-largest U.S. metropolitan area rejected a city ordinance that would have protected against discrimination on the basis of 15 characteristics, including race, sex and gender identity. Opponents of the ordinance coined it the “bathroom ordinance,” noting the law would protect the right of transgender people to use the facilities for their gender identity. It spurred an ugly campaign, full of celebrity opponents and TV ads portraying transgender people as predators, with results that many chalk up to a sad case of transphobia and fearmongering.

Being transgender in Texas is something Christof Putzel and I took a closer look at earlier this year. We got the chance to meet Roxy and a transgender boy named Evan Singleton. Both kids are going through a groundbreaking puberty-blocking regimen at a Dallas clinic.