Just like the one that was (kind of) repealed in North Carolina, legislators in Texas are mulling a bill regarding where transgender people can and cannot use the bathroom. Texas Senate Bill 6 (SB6) would ban transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, which is actually a measure that would essentially ban them from public spaces. As Laverne Cox and ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio pointed out, debating whether transgender people can use the bathroom is debating whether they can exist in public spaces. And while some in favor of similar bills have argued they would protect cisgender people in bathrooms, what these bills actually do is put transgender people in danger.

We already know that transgender people have faced violence in bathrooms because of their gender identity, but in a video for GLAAD, transgender students at University of Texas at Austin say the bill, and even the debate over it, has repercussions that ripple far beyond the restroom. The bill opens up an idea that transgender people's existence is up for debate, and it's putting them at risk.

"SB6 takes people's private fears and prejudices and enacts them into law. I know that there is a lot of fear and confusion around trans people, mostly just from misinformation or lack of information. This bill represents the worst of these misguided fears," Tahlia, an undergraduate student, told Teen Vogue. "It emboldens those who fear trans people (particularly trans women because of the man-in-a-dress trope) and gives them legal backing to discriminate against us. Particularly in Texas, where people love their guns and can now legally take them more places than ever, I fear having a gun pulled on me because some citizen thinks they're doing the right thing under the law by trying to police a woman's bathroom."

And Tahlia's fears aren't just hypothetical. She says in the video that there have been bleach balloons thrown at queer people and people of color. Graduate student Thatcher Combs knows this violence, too. Before his transition, Thatcher said he was beaten up by a group of cisgender men because he was seen going into the women's restroom — the bathroom that matches his birth sex.

"I was at a bar with friends one night and I went into the restroom and as I walked through the door, I was pulled out by four or five cisgender men who deemed that I was going into the wrong bathroom," Thatcher said. "As they beat me up, they called me a pervert. The beating didn’t stop until they 'realized' that I was, indeed, going into the right restroom."

It goes beyond bathrooms.

"I also fear no longer having legal protections against being discriminated against for being trans," Tahlia said. "In Austin we have a nondiscrimination ordinance that protects people from work, housing, and business discrimination on the basis of gender identity (as well as sexual orientation). Should SB6 pass, I would lose that protection."

That could have very real consequences, Thatcher added.

"Texas is an 'at-will' work state, meaning an employer doesn’t need a reason to fire you and there are no protections statewide for LGBTQ people," he said. "So I had to leave [a previous] job or continue to be ostracized and harassed. This is why I’m against SB6."

While Wendy Davis told Teen Vogue the best way to get legislators to care about an issue is to tell them a personal story about it, to humanize the issue and take it out of the abstract to impacting real, tangible people, that didn't seem to work with legislators lobbying for SB6. The people in the video say legislators have appeared bored or distracted when they've tried to let them know about the real challenges, fears, and dangers they may face if SB6 is passed. Instead, Tahlia said legislators are sending a clear message to transgender people that they don't matter.