An ordinance in Houston that provided far-reaching nondiscrimination rights for gay and transgender people went down in flames on Tuesday night — and it wasn't remotely close.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance — Proposition 1 on the local ballot would have extended bans on employment and housing discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national original and other classifications to gay people, bisexual people and transgender people.

Foes of the law focused like a laser beam on the transgender aspect of the law. They characterized it as the "bathroom ordinance," saying it would allow men who wear women's clothes — and sexual predators — to use public women's bathrooms. They also said the ordinance would conflict with religious liberty and generate a raft of litigation against Houston's small businesses.

By the wee hours of Tuesday morning, 95 percent of the ballots had been counted and 61 percent of voters opposed Proposition 1, according to The Texas Tribune.

President Barack Obama's Department of Education has ordered a suburban Chicago school to allow a boy who claims to be a girl into the girls' locker room, whether or not the girls or their parents like it.

The federal decision about who gets to use each toilet and shower in a distant Chicago school came after a male student sued a high school in Palatine, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. The suit claims that the student's civil rightsT were violated by a school rule which provided the two sexes their own restrooms and locker rooms.

The school offered this singular student a special area for changing clothes and using the restroom. But the boy and his lawyer instead demanded that school officials submit to his claim that he is female and so can use the girls' facilities.