State Rep. Garnet Coleman is hopeful his persistence will pay off one day for vulnerable people like Muhlaysia Booker, the Dallas woman who was beaten up by a mob in Oak Cliff this month.

For more than a decade, the Houston Democrat has led unsuccessful efforts to expand the state's hate-crime law in a way that would create explicit protections for transgender Texans.

His goal is to add the words "gender identity or expression" to the law that strengthens penalties for crimes that arise from bias or prejudice. The change would keep Texas' legislation in line with the federal hate-crime law.

But none of the six bills Coleman filed between 2007 and 2017 made it out of a committee. House Bill 1513, his most recent attempt, is still in a committee and hasn't had a hearing.

"In every iteration of the actual past hate-crimes act in Texas, there was a very strong attempt — I mean real strong attempt — to include transgender Texans," Coleman said. "I just never give up."

Texas State Rep. Garnet Coleman spoke at a Dallas Morning News Charities kickoff event at the Winspear Opera House in 2016. Coleman, D-Houston, is worried his legislation to protect transgender Texans will stall again. (File photo)

Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have hate-crime laws that address both sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Texas is one of 11 states that has protections in its hate-crime law for sexual orientation but not gender identity.

That leaves transgender residents vulnerable when potential hate crimes happen against them, activists argue.

"In order to be truly inclusive, state hate-crimes laws must explicitly cover both sexual orientation and gender identity among other protected characteristics," said Xavier Persad, senior legislative counsel at the Human Rights Campaign.

Activists are hopeful a recent attack on a transgender woman in Dallas will help emphasize the importance of Coleman's bill.

Muhlaysia Booker appeared Saturday at a rally in Dallas, the first time she's spoken publicly since the April 12 attack. (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Booker, a 23-year-old transgender woman, was assaulted by a group in broad daylight on April 12 at the Royal Crest Apartments in east Oak Cliff.

The assault happened after Booker accidentally backed into another car as she tried to leave a parking space, according to police documents. The driver of the other car told police he ran Booker's vehicle off the road to prevent her from fleeing the scene. At that point, the driver pointed a gun at Booker and demanded she pay for the damage, police said.

A large crowd gathered around, and bystanders held their phones out to record the altercation.

In one of the recordings, someone told Edward Thomas he would get $200 if he beat Booker. He is then seen punching her multiple times as other attackers joined in and stomped on her.

Booker suffered a broken wrist and a concussion during the attack. On Saturday, she made her first comments since the beating and called on activists to stand together before someone else is harmed.

"This time, I can stand before you, where in other scenarios, we're at a memorial," Booker told a crowd that gathered at a South Dallas rally to support her.

Thomas, 29, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault a few days after the attack. Dallas police also contacted the FBI to determine whether the case meets the criteria of a hate crime, after homophobic language was heard on the video.

Edward Dominic Thomas was arrested April 14 on suspicion of aggravated assault. (Dallas County Sheriff's Department)

The process would be simplified if Coleman's bill is ever passed, activists argue. Under current law, agencies have to appeal to the FBI first, said Leslie McMurray of the Resource Center in Dallas.

"It would give Texas law enforcement a tool that they need when they're prosecuting crimes," McMurray said of House Bill 1513.

Coleman is adamant that "gender identity" should have been included in the state's hate-crime law from the outset.

The current iteration of the law was signed in 2001 as the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act in response to Byrd's 1998 murder in Jasper. The bill protected against crimes motivated by race, color, disability, religion, national origin, age, gender or sexual preference. Police and judges were added to the state's hate-crime law in 2017, partly in response to the July 2016 ambush on Dallas police officers.

"Gender identity," however, is absent from the legislation despite its inclusion in federal law. Coleman is trying to change that.

Debra Booker, Muhlaysia's grandmother, is hopeful Coleman doesn't give up in his pursuit of changing the law. In the week since the attack, Booker said her granddaughter is still trying to understand how the traffic accident turned violent.

"It was pure hatred. Pure evil," Debra Booker said. "I just don't know how a person could live with themselves and do someone like that. I don't know how they sleep at night."

She said people need to learn to be more accepting of others. She had a hard time initially understanding Muhlaysia's identity, but through her faith in God, learned to love her. People don't have the right to judge others, she said.

"You can't make a person be what you want them to be. And I don't want to change Muhlaysia," she said. "I love each one of my grandkids for who they are."

As for Coleman, the lawmaker said he is hopeful House Bill 1513 will have a hearing this session. But he'll continue to fight for it, even if it doesn't. Continued attention on the issue is just as important to him.

"Supreme Court justices read the newspaper, too," he said.