Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Lobby Against Texas 'Bathroom' Bill (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Executives from some of the globe's leading technology firms are demanding that Texas not adopt "discriminatory" bathroom legislation. On the table in Texas is a law similar to one enacted -- and later partially repealed -- in North Carolina. The tech companies have aligned themselves with critics of the bill who believe the legislation is unfair to the transgender community. "As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas' reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families," the companies wrote Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. "Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected." Pending Texas Senate legislation would prohibit transgender people in Texas from using restrooms matching their gender identities. The House on Sunday passed its own bill that would apply the bathroom limitations solely at schools. The tech companies, however, aren't threatening to pull out of Texas, like some did over the same issue in North Carolina. The letter sent to Gov. Abbott was signed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon chief Jeff Wilke, IBM head Ginni Rometty, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and Google's Sundar Pichai. There were 14 companies -- including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Silicon Labs, Celanese Corp., GSD&M, Salesforce, and Gearbox Software -- signing on to the letter. "Discrimination is wrong and it has no place in Texas or anywhere in our country," the companies wrote.

Comments

Context around the law (from a Texan)

[Gizzmonic]

As a Texan, I've been reading about this bill for almost a year now. Here's some context around it:

1) Texas still has some of the most molester-friendly groping laws in the nation (anything short of penetration is a class C misdemeanor, you won't even go to jail for it). This bill does nothing to address it.

2)The driving force behind the bill is revenge on the federal government for dictating that transgender students can use the restroom of their identified gender (a policy that is strongly supported by local school districts). That's why the bill only applies to government buildings (and a subset of those, at that!).

3)The bill's author, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (not the sportscaster) got his start as a bargain-bin Rush Limbaugh. He realizes that the "social conservatives" lost the fight against gays, and he's using this to target a smaller, even more vulnerable minority.