Rick Riordan
Author Rick Riordan turned down an invitation to be honored by the Texas Legislature in March because of SB6, the bathroom bill introduced last week by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham.
Riordan tweeted, “Just turned down an invite to be honored by TX state legislature as a Texas author. If they want to honor me, they could stop this nonsense.”
Riordan is the bestselling author of more than 20 novels for young readers. Born in San Antonio, he graduated from UT Austin and now lives in Boston.
The event honoring Texas authors takes place on March 8 and is organized by Dallas state Rep. Jason Villalba.
SB6 would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools, government buildings and public universities based on their “biological sex.” It’s unclear which bathroom the bill would require that person to use if the sex assigned at birth differs from the birth on his or her birth certificate if that birth certificate has been corrected. The Bureau of Vital Statistics has been correcting birth certificates since October 2015 as part of the settlement of the state marriage-equality case and will continue to do so under that federal court order.
North Carolina’s HB2, a law similar to SB6, has cost that state an estimated $600 million in its first six months. The conservative Texas Association of Business has condemned SB6 and said it will do everything it can to defeat the bill, which it estimates could cost Texas up to $8.5 billion in its first year.
The North Carolina law also outlawed local protections for LGBT people. In Texas, local ordinances protect LGBT people in Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso. Other cities like Grand Prairie and Mesquite have policies that protect their LGBT employees. Other bills have been filed in the Legislature to strip cities of their right to protect their own citizens.
