Voters in Odessa, Texas, have overwhelmingly rebuked the city’s anti-trans reputation by replacing the three city council members who supported its infamous bathroom ban – and also by electing Odessa’s first-ever gay council member.

Craig Stoker, executive director for the local Meals on Wheels, campaigned on improving the city’s infrastructure, while his opponent – incumbent Denise Swanner – campaigned on homophobia.

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Swanner’s campaign sent out political mailers declaring that the only similarity between her and Stoker is that they are both in relationships with men. The race was nonpartisan, and this was part of Swanner’s attempt to connect Stoker with the Democratic party.

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But Stoker wasn’t phased.

“None of it was truly about me,” he told the Texas Tribune. “It was their fear of losing a seat, losing an election, losing the title. I came into this campaign with the mindset that I’m going to have to rely on the work I’ve done in the community and the reputation I’ve built preceding me. That’s all I got.”

“I understood the outcome was too important,” he added. “If I could pull this off, what I would have the ability to do completely outweighed whatever they were slinging at me. And the ability to represent people who have probably never had a voice in the City Council chamber became too important to me.”

And clearly, his strategy worked.

Stoker won the at-large seat with 56% of the vote in a county where Donald Trump earned 76% of the vote.

Swanner and the other two candidates who lost – Javier Joven (also the mayor) and Mark Matta – were part of a majority on the six-member council pushing a staunchly conservative agenda, including placing a $10,000 bounty on trans people who use bathrooms and locker rooms that do not align with their sex assigned at birth.

“Voters said this is not how we want our city run… I agree and we have to do a better job for the people,” Cal Hendrick, who beat Joven, told the Odessa American, which referred to the three incumbents as “The Squad.”

The results have made residents hopeful that city leadership will stop focusing on social issues and instead tackle infrastructure and other key needs.

Odessa became a national name after it’s strict anti-trans bathroom ban that allows individual citizens (whether or not they are Odessa or even Texas residents) to sue a trans person for a minimum of $10,000 in damages if they violate it (there is no cap on how large the bounty can be). 

Last month, the city council approved an expansion of the law so that it would apply to private facilities as well as public ones.

In addition to granting the right to sue, the ordinance also invokes criminal penalties for individuals who use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The provision states that a “person violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed guilty of a Class C misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars” and that anyone who refuses to use a bathroom aligned with what the city perceives as their biological sex, even after being asked to leave by a building owner, may be guilty of misdemeanor trespassing.

The bounty defines biological sex based on birth certificates, either at the time of birth or corrected if there was a clerical error. This means that any transgender individual who gets their birth certificate updated to reflect their gender identity would still be violating the law if they used bathrooms that align with their gender.

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