As Texas lawmakers try to push through SB6. a harmful bill that discriminates against transgender people, Texans are rising up in support of the trans community.

SB6, a carbon copy of many of the most egregious parts of North Carolina’s infamous House Bill 2, bars transgender individuals from using restrooms and other single-sex spaces that match who we are and prevents localities from extending comprehensive non-discrimination protections to trans individuals. Opposed by thousands of leaders across Texas, the business community, the sports community, and fair-minded people throughout the state and across the country, the bill nonetheless is gaining traction.

Like so many of these measures it is animated by a powerful few who propagate lies about transgender individuals and systematically work to place trans lives at risk by attempting to erase the very core of who we are as human beings. By so doing, these bills and the conversations around them send the horrible, dangerous and untrue message to young trans people that they are not worthy of living safe and healthy lives. These bills also send the message to trans people and to the people who might hurt us that our bodies and existence pose a threat to others. With the bodies of trans people already precariously situated because of individually-perpetrated and systemically enforced violence, these messages risk lives — most acutely, the lives of trans women and femmes of color who face epidemic rates of murder, HIV, and incarceration.

But even in the face of these cruel attacks, so many brilliant and beautiful transgender Texans and allies continue to rise up and fight back.