The passage of a “bathroom bill” last March sparked a maelstrom with severe political, economic and cultural consequences for North Carolina that continued through the end of 2016. Yet Texas is poised to propose a similar law in 2017.

In November, one of the state’s most senior politicians published his top 10 priorities for the next legislative session. A “Women’s Privacy Act” was at number six, right after banning immigration “sanctuary cities” and insisting on photo ID at the ballot box.

The act, said lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, is necessary so that “women and girls” can have “privacy and safety in their restrooms, showers and locker rooms”.

When filed, the bill is likely to turn national attention to Texas in the wake of North Carolina legislators’ failure to repeal their bill during a special session on 21 December. Patrick issued a statement the following day congratulating them.

The so-called bathroom bill in North Carolina includes a provision that requires people to use public bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificate. Critics have described it as a thinly veiled attack on the transgender community under the guise of protecting public safety.

Patrick hasn’t released his own proposed bill, but has said it would allow businesses to create their own bathroom policies.

Despite the demonstrable negative consequences in states that have passed laws that undermine LGBTQ equality, the coming months will indicate whether the ascent of Donald Trump to the White House is emboldening religious conservatives to press for more such bills after a series of gains for gay and transgender people at the federal level under the Obama administration.

A federal court ruling Saturday may further embolden these efforts. A Texas judge temporarily halted Obama administration rules that are intended to ban discrimination by doctors and hospitals against transgender persons. Joining Texas in the suit were Wisconsin, Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas.

In August, the same judge sided with 13 Republican-controlled states to block transgender protections in public schools sought by the Obama administration.

‘Something that should be avoided’

Protesters rally against HB2 in Raleigh, North Carolina in April. Photograph: Chuck Liddy/AP

So-called “religious freedom” provisions similar to those that caused controversy in Indiana in 2015 are also set to be aired in the Texas statehouse next year.

“I certainly believe that logically thinking people would look to North Carolina and look to Indiana,” said Chuck Smith, chief executive of Equality Texas, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

Such people would see, he said, “the economic consequences that were experienced in those states as a result of filing discriminatory legislation, and a logically thinking person would come to the conclusion that that is something that should be avoided in the state of Texas.”

The state’s chamber of commerce, the Texas Association of Business (TAB), reached that view. It has produced a 23-page report warning of dire economic consequences if the state follows North Carolina’s path by pursuing a policy that would harm tourism, alienate employers and dissuade talented millennials from staying in or moving to Texas.

“If you just look at North Carolina and Indiana and put that over a Texas-sized footprint of our economy, it could be up to $8.5bn and 185,000 jobs lost, it is very dramatic,” said Chris Wallace, the association’s president.

“We want to remain one of the top states in which to do business, so why would we want to do anything to risk any of that, by legislation that’s really unnecessary and unenforceable?

“The question of how you would enforce people going into the right bathroom…What, so you have to take your birth certificate? It gets really tricky.

“We’ve got too many core issues that we need to be worried about in this state – education, transportation, water, many more. Economic development, keeping us strong. We don’t need these types of issues to overshadow our core agenda items.”

Att a Texas Tribune event in November, Joe Straus, the speaker of the Texas house of representatives, said he had other, more urgent concerns than the bathroom bill.



Patrick, though, appears unmoved. In a statement earlier this month his office called the TAB report “misinformation and fear-mongering regarding a bill they haven’t even seen”. It also defended the proposal as a way to “assure that sexual predators, like those who exploit the internet, will not be able to freely enter women’s restrooms, locker rooms or showers, and that businesses are not forced by local ordinances to allow men in women’s restrooms and locker rooms”.

Patrick’s spokesperson did not return a Guardian request for comment.

‘We have a friend in the White House’

Sexual assault in any location is, of course, already illegal, while there is no evidence that non-discrimination laws have resulted in increased rates of sexual assault. By contrast, LGBTQ advocates argue that violence and bias against transgender people is a very real problem exacerbated by prejudicial laws.

North Carolina’s HB2 was signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican who lost his bid for re-election in November. The backlash saw sports events and concerts cancelled and businesses scrapping investment plans.

Patrick, 66, was a radio talkshow host perhaps best-known for getting an on-air vasectomy until he was elected as lieutenant governor in 2014 on a platform of stopping the “invasion” of undocumented immigrants. He was the Texas state chairman for the Trump presidential campaign.

“Starting in 2017, we will have a friend in the White House who was clearly elected because the people of this country believe in the conservative principles that have guided the way we govern in Texas,” Patrick said in November.

Smith, of Equality Texas, said that Texas’s conservative politicians telegraphed their intentions to introduce more anti-equality legislation long before Trump’s victory.

“I believe we have seen a heightened sense of concern about the possibility of favourable policies being rolled back on a federal level,” he said. “At the state level we already saw the threats that were lying ahead and those haven’t really changed.”

The US supreme court legalised same-sex marriage nationwide in June 2015. That major victory for gay rights appears to have inspired a pushback by conservative Republicans in states.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 200 “anti-LGBTQ bills” were introduced across the country in 2016 sessions – most failing to pass – and more than 111 million people live in states without clear state-level protections against LGBTQ workplace discrimination.

Smith is also concerned that 2017 will see Texas legislators press for “religious freedom” laws that would, for example, exempt Christian retailers who believe homosexuality is a sin from providing services for gay weddings.

So far there are a handful of Texas bills which advocates consider anti-LGBTQ that have been filed amid the usual slew of pro-gun, pro-God, anti-undocumented immigrant, anti-abortion and anti-federal government proposals up for discussion when the legislative session starts in January.

One would eliminate local non-discrimination ordinances if they have protections that go beyond state law – reminiscent of HB2. Another calls on the state not to enforce federal laws that the Texas legislature deems to violate the state constitution – which since 2005 has defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

A high-profile revision of the law on a parent’s right to know information about their child has raised fears that it could force teachers to out students.