Texan goes viral after eviscerating lawmakers over ‘bigoted’ anti-trans bill
Texas local Nick Mollberg said the bill was about ‘bigotry’. (Texas State Senate)
Texas local Nick Mollberg said the bill was about 'bigotry'. (Texas State Senate)
A Texas resident has taken to the state senate floor to roast the legislature over a bill that legally denies trans people exist.
Politicians passed a state bill that seeks to redefine Texas law so that only two sexes, male and female, are legally recognised, essentially denying the existence of trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people, forcing them to list their birth sex on official documents.
Authored by Republican House representative Ellen Troxclair, House Bill 229 passed its final set of votes on Wednesday (28 May). Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to sign it into law.
During a senate committee ahead of the vote, Texan Nick Mollberg took aim at legislators who voted “yay” of passing a bill to “hurt trans people.”
Mollberg went on to say: “If we were sitting here 50 years ago, 60 years ago, instead of talking about trans women going into bathrooms, you’d be talking about Black women going into white bathrooms. Do y’all ever get tired of being on the wrong side of history?”
The software engineer criticised Troxclair and other Republicans who claimed that the proposed law aimed to protect the “privacy, safety, equality and rights” of cisgender women.
“I’m just going to call this bill what it is, it’s bigotry,” Mollberg said. “For those voting for the bill: if you want me to look into your eyes while I call you a bigot, I will happily do so. Moreover, I’ll call you a coward.
“You’re not actually interested in protecting women in Texas. That’s the guise of the bill, right? It’s the Trojan Horse you use for all this anti-trans nonsense. I remember for years Republicans [saying]: ‘Gay marriage is going to end the world’. Then public opinion shifted, and you had to pick a new scapegoat.
“It was bigotry then, it’s bigotry now. You are not interested in helping or protecting women. You’re here to hurt trans people, no other reason.”
Texas breaks records for number of ‘cruel’ bills
Once the new legislation is enacted, Texas law will only recognise women as an “individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova”, and men as “someone whose reproductive system is developed to fertilise the ova of a female”.
Critics argue that the definitions laid out in the bill are so narrow that they exclude some cisgender and intersex women and men.
Ash Hall, from the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the “cruel” bill would “further strip away legal protections” that shield all women from discrimination.
“Instead of trying to erase trans and intersex people, state officials should focus on addressing real issues like funding our public schools and increasing access to healthcare for all Texans,” she continued.
Democratic state senator José Menéndez said during a debate on the bill that it would force Texans into “categories that don’t reflect their lived experiences or identities,” and would become “discrimination in practice”.
Texas has broken records for the number of anti-trans bills state politicians proposed since the 2025 legislative session began. More than 120 have already been filed. Community-based Trans Legislation Tracker is currently monitoring 130 proposed new laws in the Lone Star State.
The governor’s spokesman, Andrew Mahaleris, told The Hill that Abbott was looking “forward to reaffirming this universal truth” by signing HB 229. He cited president Donald Trump’s executive order which, in January, declared that the official position of the US government was that there are only two sexes.
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