Legislation that would restrict transgender Texans from using the bathroom aligned with their gender identity would violate the state’s guarantee of "equality for all" and leave them unprotected from discrimination, LGBT advocates argued Thursday.

Speaking at a Capitol news conference, opponents of bills targeting LGBT rights said they would oppose such legislation, which includes Senate Bill 6, known by critics as the "bathroom bill."

Other bills being targeted by the advocates included two bills from state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood: SB 92, which would overturn local ordinances protecting LGBT people from workplace and housing discrimination, and SB 89, which would allow state officials to refuse enforcing any federal law they feel violates the state’s constitution.

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, has said SB 6 would protect women and young girls from adult men who could use local ordinances to enter women’s restrooms.

"This legislation codifies what has been common practice in Texas and everywhere else forever — that men and women should use separate, designated bathrooms," Patrick said in a statement after the bill’s filing. "This issue is not about discrimination — it’s about public safety, protecting businesses and common sense."

The bill, called the Texas Privacy Act, is one of Patrick’s top priorities this session, and would require transgender individuals use the restroom corresponding with the sex reflected on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity in public schools and government buildings. It would also overturn nondiscrimination ordinances that include bathroom protections for transgender people in several cities, including Austin.

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"Allowing transgender people to use the public restrooms is not a violation of privacy to anybody, nor is it a threat to safety," Dan Quinn, communications director for Texas Freedom Network, told the American-Statesman. "The folks most likely to face physical danger are LGBT people themselves, and that’s not helped when you have elected officials who use them as political ‘red meat’ and demonize them just to please their political base."

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, expressed a more cautious attitude on bathroom legislation than some of his Senate counterparts at a Wednesday gathering of the Texas Association of Business, drawing applause after saying that Texans should be "very, very concerned" with the legislation’s potential effects on the state’s economy.

"Many people where I come from get concerned about anything that can slow down the overall job-creating machine," Straus said Wednesday.

The bill’s opponents point to millions of dollars in lost business in North Carolina as a result of a similar bill passed there last year.

"I came to Austin this week to warn lawmakers about the disastrous consequences that these types of discriminatory laws can have," Mayor Nancy Vaughan of Greensboro, N.C., said at Thursday’s news briefing.

Quinn said it is too early to tell at this point the likelihood of SB 6 and other LGBT-related legislation becoming law.

"It would be good if the governor would express his concerns about the bill, but he’s been silent about it," Quinn said. "It should be stunning to any taxpayer that with all of the problems the state is facing right now … the lieutenant governor has decided to make discrimination against who uses public restrooms a major agenda item."