Texan Goes Viral For Calling Out Legislators Over Anti-Trans Bill
'If we were sitting here like 50 years ago, maybe 60 years ago, instead of talking about trans women going into bathrooms, you'd be talking about Black women going into white bathrooms,' Nick Mollberg said at the May 15 committee hearing. 'Do y'all ever get tired of being on the wrong side of history? Opposed to women's suffrage, as you were, conservatives, throughout history? Opposed to interracial marriage, opposed to civil rights.'
Mollberg was speaking in opposition to Texas House Bill 229, which gives general definitions for only two sexes, male and female, excluding intersex and trans people. The bill states that 'only females' can get pregnant, as well as 'males are, on average, bigger, stronger, and faster than females.'
Mollberg asked the state senators what their grandkids would say to them in the future.
'They're going to look at you the same way the grandchildren of segregationists looked at their bigoted grandparents,' he said.
He continued: 'It was bigotry then. It's bigotry now. You don't care about actually about helping women in Texas. If you did, you wouldn't be letting them bleed out because they can't get access to abortion care. You wouldn't be letting them die of gun violence and not lifting a finger to help them.'
A clip of Mollberg has gained attention on social media, racking up more than 1 million views on TikTok and more than 2 million on Instagram. Mollberg did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment.
Several transgender people also testified against the bill, including Autumn Lauener, vice president of The Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Scholars, a group that promotes inclusiveness toward different gender identities and expressions in public policy. She said House Bill 229 'accomplishes nothing.'
'It does not protect children,' Lauener said. 'It does not support families. It serves only to erase, to attempt to write transgender and intersex people out of the story of Texas. But our existence is resistance, and we will never stop resisting. Our community will not be erased. Nothing this legislator does can end who we are. We have always been here, and we are not going anywhere.'
During the 2025 Texas legislative session, Texas Republicans have introduced more than 120 anti-trans bills, according to Axios.
During his testimony, Mollberg said he remembered when Republicans 'for years' thought gay marriage was 'going to end the world' until public opinion shifted and they had to pick a 'new scapegoat.' Mollberg added that if any lawmakers were going to vote for the bill, he would look them in the eye while they were doing it and call them a bigot and coward.
'It's not that you can sit here and actually do the business of the people, make lives better for Texans like me,' Mollberg said. 'No, no, no, there's no time for that. We got to bully 1% of the population. We've got to harm them as badly as we possibly can.'
He continued: 'You are not interested in helping or protecting women. Period. Full stop. You're here to hurt trans people. No other reason.'
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