An anti-trans bathroom bill that took effect in Texas on December 4th is proving complicated to enforce, something trans advocates have known all along would be the case. On December 6, transgender protestors with a group called the 6W Project visited the Texas Capitol and attempted to use the restrooms that aligned with their gender identities to make a point about the lack of enforcement mechanisms in the law. Related Nancy Mace blames transgender people for her public airport freak-out At first, they easily entered the bathrooms of their choice, then proceeded to give speeches in the Capitol Rotunda, The Texas Tribune reported. But when they attempted to use the restrooms a second time, officers stopped them and asked to see their IDs. Officers claimed in a statement that the ID requests were voluntary, though those who did not show their IDs were barred from entering the bathroom. The officers did allow two trans women with female markers on their IDs to enter the womens restrooms. Officers also reportedly only guarded the womens restroom and not the mens. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today I think that the Texas government just established that they have no consistent enforceable standards for this law, protester Matilda Miller told the Texas Tribune.What we did was not radical, it was not profound, added 6W Project co-founder Ry Vazquez. People use the restroom every day in a public setting, and for it to become what it is now, where it is now an active threat to someone who is not prepared, is utterly abysmal.Marketed as The Texas Womens Privacy Act, TexasSenate Bill 8has become better known as the bathroom bill. Its enactment marks the culmination of a10-year effort by Texas Republicans. Under the bill, access to restrooms and other facilities in taxpayer-funded buildings must be limited based on sex assigned at birth. The law applies to county and city buildings, state agency buildings, city-managed airports, public schools, and public universities.The law does not allow an individual to be punished or fined by the state; rather, it fines the institution that allowed the infraction $25,000, plus an additional $125,000 per day for additional violations. Critics of the law have worried that it will spark violent over-policing by the institutions at risk of these massive fines. This policing will affect both trans and cis people who dont fit strict gender norms. AsBrian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said, Were still very worried that its gonna lead to a lot of harassment against trans people in particular, but also against any person who maybe looks too masculine or too feminine, or someone just wants to report them to the police or to a local entity.The law has already been used in ways that lawmakers may not have intended. Students at the University ofTexasSan Antonio (UTSA), for example, are being forced out of their current dorm rooms and made to relocate because of the ban. At UTSA, mixed-gender dorms include pairs of rooms separated by a shared bathroom; often, those rooms are occupied by people of different genders.Any students sharing a bathroom between their rooms with someone of a different sex assigned at birth are being forcibly rehoused to comply with the new law. I dont understand how you can police this to fully consenting adults, said Katarina Rendon, a UTSA sophomore. Theyre separating brothers and sisters. Theyre separating couples. You choose to live with who you want to live with, and theyre taking that choice away. Rendon says that she and her mother were given only one day to relocate her room to a different wing.Even more, research has shown no evidence that allowing trans women access to single-sex spaces like bathrooms poses a safety risk to cisgender women.In fact, forcing trans people to use facilities that do not align with their gender identity can result in high rates of harassment and violence against transgender people as well as cisgender people, particularly women who do not conform to traditional ideas of femininity, according to theMovement Advancement Project. A 2021 study from UCLAs Williams Institute found that trans people arefour times more likely than cis peopleto be victims of violent crime.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.