Seth Meyers Breaks Down How HERO Was Defeated

Seth Meyers has explained to his viewers how the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was undone.

The host of Late Night With Seth Meyers aired a segment Wednesday that addressed HERO--the broad-spectrum ordinance that protected Houstonians against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, along with many other characteristics, in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

Specifically, he pointed out how transphobic fearmongering succeeded in persuading Houston voters to repeal the ordinance, despite support from prominent public figures like President Obama.

"Opponents of the law claimed falsely that the bill would allow anyone of any gender to walk into any bathroom they wanted," he explained. "The idea is known as the 'bathroom myth' and the anti-HERO ads focused heavily on it."

He then showed viewers one of the ads promoting ignorance and misinformation, and quoted a Houston resident's takeaway from a BuzzFeed article, which was, "If a person woke up one day and said, 'I identify as a woman,' he could just go into the bathroom to see ... booty."

"I've never been in a woman's restroom, but I'm guessing the booties aren't just out for everyone to look at," Meyers said. "And if they are, I'm pretty sure you're doing something wrong. Also, the restroom is the five minutes of the day you don't want to see the booty. That's when the booty is busy. More importantly, the idea that you could go into a bathroom and do anything other than use the toilet is already illegal in Houston."

Meyers also took the "creep" Mike Huckabee to task for his transphobic talking points, such as when the Republican presidential hopeful said, "Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E."

Watch the segment below.