In the last decade, the battle over transgender rights in North America has shifted from local ordinances and school policies to the highest courts and state legislatures, with consequences reverberating far beyond the communities where these fights first erupted. This week, the issue reached a new crescendo as Texas implemented its first statewide law restricting which public bathrooms transgender and gender non-conforming residents can use, capping a decade-long campaign that has seen more than 1,000 anti-trans bills filed across the United States in 2025 alone, according to The Barbed Wire and the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
The Texas law, Senate Bill 8, signed by Governor Greg Abbott in September and effective as of December 4, 2025, applies to public schools and state government buildings, imposing the nation’s steepest financial penalties on noncompliant public entities—up to $25,000 initially and $125,000 for each day violations persist. The law’s passage marks a watershed moment in a national campaign that began with the defeat of Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) in 2015, a campaign that weaponized fears about bathroom safety and set the template for a new wave of legislation targeting transgender Americans.
Annise Parker, Houston’s mayor from 2009 and the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city, remembers the turning point well. In 2014, Parker proposed HERO to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, and other protected characteristics. But during the public comment period, opponents zeroed in on a single paragraph allowing individuals to use restrooms that fit their gender identity, claiming it would enable sexual assault by men pretending to be women. “At first I laughed,” Parker told The Barbed Wire, “The sexual predators language, men in women’s bathrooms, goes way back.”
Despite the Houston City Council’s initial approval, a coalition of pastors and conservative groups launched a campaign to overturn the ordinance. Their efforts culminated in a bruising legal battle and a citywide referendum, where 61% of voters rejected HERO. The campaign’s messaging—epitomized by the slogan “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms”—became a blueprint for conservative activists nationwide. According to The Barbed Wire, groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council provided legal and logistical support, seeking to substantiate claims of threats to women’s safety, though no evidence of such threats was found by the Investigative Reporting Workshop or other research organizations.
The defeat of HERO in Houston was only the beginning. In the years that followed, Texas legislators introduced at least nine bills restricting LGBTQ rights, including four targeting bathroom access. None became law for a decade, but the messaging spread like wildfire. By 2016, North Carolina passed its own infamous House Bill 2, sparking national outrage and economic backlash, but also inspiring similar proposals in dozens of other states. The Associated Press estimated that North Carolina’s law would cost the state $3.76 billion in lost business over twelve years.
Texas, meanwhile, saw its own wave of proposals. State Senator Lois Kolkhorst’s 2016 bill failed after business leaders warned of North Carolina-style consequences, but the drumbeat continued. By 2025, Texas led the nation with 139 anti-trans bills introduced, according to the Trans Legislative Tracker. Eleven variations of a bathroom bill were filed that year alone, culminating in the passage of Senate Bill 8 during a special legislative session. The law restricts access to multiple-occupancy bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities in public institutions to individuals of a single sex, as defined by their birth certificate, and requires state entities to take “every reasonable step” to enforce compliance. Exceptions exist for custodial work, emergencies, or children under nine, but the law stops short of mandating specific enforcement mechanisms.
The Texas law arrives amid a broader national wave of anti-trans legislation. Since 2015, more than 1,600 bills targeting transgender Americans have been filed across multiple states, with over 1,000 in 2025 alone. According to The Barbed Wire, this legislative onslaught has been accompanied by a sharp increase in negative rhetoric, with 85% of transgender adults reporting that anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric have harmed their mental health. Research consistently shows no evidence that allowing trans individuals to use bathrooms matching their gender identity poses a public safety threat, but these bills have been linked to increased harassment, medical complications from restroom avoidance, and even assault.
While Texas was making headlines, a parallel battle has been raging north of the border in Saskatchewan, Canada. In the summer of 2023, Premier Scott Moe introduced a bill requiring teachers to inform parents when children under 16 changed names or pronouns. The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL), representing 100,000 unionized workers, quickly condemned the move. “Outing children as part of a political gamble is violent and despicable,” tweeted the SFL president, a message that resonated with LGBTQ2S+ organizations and galvanized opposition.
According to The Breach, the SFL and Canadian Civil Liberties Association organized a rally of over 1,000 people at the provincial legislature when Moe prepared to invoke the notwithstanding clause—a constitutional provision that allows governments to override certain Charter rights—to shield the bill from court challenges. Labour leaders from across Canada attended, recognizing a common threat: the use of the notwithstanding clause to target vulnerable groups, from trans kids to workers and religious minorities.
UR Pride, a Regina-based queer and trans organization, challenged the law in court, arguing it violated children’s Charter rights. After a judge granted an injunction to halt the policy, the government invoked the notwithstanding clause to force it into law, a move now being challenged before the Supreme Court of Canada on grounds it violates the right to be free from cruel and unusual treatment. Unions including CUPE Saskatchewan, the SFL, and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation have intervened, arguing the policy infringes on teachers’ professional obligations to prioritize students’ welfare.
“There are 7,000 to 8,000 CUPE members in the education system in this province who are now legally required to out trans and non-binary children, even if they think outing them will be harmful and violent to that kid,” Kent Peterson, president of CUPE Saskatchewan, told The Breach. He added that CUPE would defend any member disciplined for defying the law through political action, campaigns, and legal support.
The use of the notwithstanding clause is not limited to Saskatchewan. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invoked it multiple times in 2024, including to order 51,000 striking teachers back to work and to protect laws restricting trans youths’ access to healthcare and pronoun changes in schools. Ontario Premier Doug Ford used the clause in 2018 to limit election ads and in 2022 to try to bar a CUPE strike, backing down only after education workers threatened a general strike.
As right-wing governments increasingly deploy the notwithstanding clause to override Charter protections, unions and civil rights advocates argue that public mobilization and political coalitions are the only effective countermeasures. Saskatchewan’s model of solidarity between labour and LGBTQ2S+ advocates offers a potential blueprint for resistance as these battles spread across Canada.
From Houston’s city hall to the Saskatchewan legislature, the fight over transgender rights has become a defining civil rights struggle of the 21st century, shaped by political maneuvering, grassroots resistance, and the enduring power of public narrative. With each new law or court challenge, the stakes for trans individuals—and for the broader principles of equality and dignity—have only grown more urgent.
