Opponents of LGBTQ rights in Houston used a big, ugly myth to take down a law that would simply ban discrimination in certain settings. Opponents of the ordinance fell back on age-old, desperate tactics to try to combat the law, using what's widely known as the bathroom myth. You can see it in the advertisement by Texas Values Action, which shows a trans woman using the locker room that corresponds to her gender identity — and posing some sort of danger to other women in the facilities.

This is a tactic that has been used time and time again — not just against LGBTQ efforts, but against the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have established equal rights for women. The idea is that men will somehow take advantage of equal rights laws to disguise themselves as women and attack women in bathrooms.

HERO would not have protected people who commit crimes in bathrooms — they could still be prosecuted. And business owners would have been able to deny a customer they believe to be a man entrance to a women's bathroom. What business owners wouldn't have been able to do under HERO is deny trans people entrance to a bathroom in a way that's clearly discriminatory — by, for example, using a slur or insulting a person's gender identity. Read more via Vox