Well, pack your bags and grab your hall passes, Lubbock. While our local infrastructure continues to crumble into the abyss and the South Plains wind tries to sandblast the skin off our faces, our beloved Attorney General—and aspiring Senator—Ken Paxton has finally pivoted to the most pressing issue facing the Great State of Texas: Who is peeing where in Austin.
Because nothing says “small government” like a state-funded tip line for bathroom snitches, Paxton’s office has officially put Austin ISD on notice. Apparently, a “concerned citizen” (read: someone with way too much free time and a weirdly specific interest in student biology) reported that a student at Austin High was using a restroom that didn’t match their birth certificate. Naturally, instead of literally anything else, the AG’s office is threatening the district with a $5,000-per-day fine until they “cure the violation.”
This is the first big flex of Senate Bill 8, aka the “Women’s Privacy Act,” which is basically a fancy way of saying the state now employs professional bathroom monitors. Of course, the math on the fines is a bit fuzzy—the law says $25,000, Paxton’s office says $5,000—but hey, when you’re busy “protecting” girls’ locker rooms from teenagers, who has time for basic arithmetic or actual legal consistency?
The timing is, of course, a total coincidence and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Paxton is currently in a runoff for a U.S. Senate seat. It’s heartening to know that while we’re out here in Lubbock wondering if the next dust storm will finally bury us, our state leaders are bravely spending taxpayer dollars to ensure that Austin’s school districts are sufficiently harassed over their plumbing.
If Ken is this dedicated to monitoring what’s happening in stalls, maybe we should invite him to Lubbock to investigate why half the public toilets in our city parks haven’t seen a roll of TP since the Bush administration? Or does he only care about “privacy” when there’s a camera crew involved?
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/03/06/texas-ken-paxton-aisd-bathroom-bill-complaint/
