When Emmett Schelling first moved to Texas, it wasn’t to become an advocate. It was for a corporate job.
He began volunteering with the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) at a time when a so-called “bathroom bill,” which would have mandated people use the bathroom of their biological sex, was still just an idea.
When the bathroom bill became a fully formed piece of legislation that consumed the 2017 session, its existence made Schelling acutely aware of who he was as a transgender man. It also put him on notice that the Legislature could—and would—try to legislate who he could be. The bathroom bill did not pass that year. But since then, the number of anti-LGBTQ bills filed by state legislators increased from two dozen in 2017 to over 100 in 2023.
.jpg?w=600)
