Sunday, April 2, 2023

Anti-LGBTQ initiatives by the Texas GOP

I'm reading this news: "Republican lawmakers in Texas proposed a bill [SB 1993] that would enable the secretary of state to overturn election results in counties that have one million residents or more." That would be Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, and Collin counties. The secretary of state could do this if they have "good cause to believe" that at least 2 percent of a county's polling places had requested supplemental ballots but did not receive them. In this situation, the secretary of state could order a new election. The secretary of state would have "the same authority granted to a district court."
— "Texas Republicans Introduce Bill Allowing Secretary of State to Overturn Election Results," Filip Timotija, Mediaite, Mar 31, 2023

I'm considering that in the context of recent homophobia and transphobia by the Republican party in Texas.

dinosaur skeletons in a museum

In 2010, the Texas Republican Party's platform declared: "We oppose the legalization of sodomy." Zero tolerance there. They would criminalize sex.

In 2019, a Texas couple argued about whether to support their child's gender.

This in June 2022:

Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child.”

* * *

Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to the official Texas GOP platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesperson James Wesolek.

* * *

Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns “in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.


— "Texas Republican Convention calls Biden win illegitimate and rebukes Cornyn over gun talks," SEWELL CHAN AND ERIC NEUGEBOREN Texas Tribune, June 18, 2022

Charles M. Blow, "The G.O.P. Tries to Build a Gay Ghetto," June 22, 2022, reminds us — in case anyone has forgotten — that, in 2016,

Republican state legislators were introducing a number of bathroom bills, an early step in their push to oppress queer people. Then came a series of state laws preventing transgender women and girls from participating in female school sports.

These attacks were never going to remain focused only on trans people. (Even if they did, it would still be a horrific attack on human rights.) Now, we are witnessing the inevitable result, as Republican legislators widen the attacks to queerness itself.

Just this year, we saw Florida pass its “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Note: For more on Florida's "Don't Say Gay," see my article on Medium.

Here's an example of a trans man who was harassed for using a women's bathrooom (Rand Bishop, on Medium). And here's a cis woman who was murdered (Blackthelma, on Medium). This happened to a short-haired women in Las Vegas (The Advocate, 2022).

And in schools:

We are here:

We are here:

"Just last week, Texas released 10 bills targeting the transgender community, defining trans people as doing drag and curtailing their medical treatments and ability to exist in public. Now, this bill [SCR #3] specifically calls for an 'end to gender affirming care.'" — Erin Reed, "Texas Resolution Seeks To 'End Gender Affirming Care' Entirely" Substack, November 29, 2022

In June 2022, someone at Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide a list of everyone who had changed their gender [unpaywalled gift link to Washington Post] on their driver's license or any other identification records that the department managed. Employees found over 16,000 changes over the previous two years. Some were "driver’s licenses that had been changed in error, or multiple times, or for reasons other than gender changes." The reason for the changes was not stored in any easily retrievable way, so they did not give the data to Paxton's office. Abbott had previously "signed a bill banning transgender youths from participating in sports that align with their gender identity at K-12 public schools and ordered the state to investigate the provision of gender-affirming care as potential child abuse," according to the Washington Post. The newspaper quoted one lawyer as saying: "They’ve already targeted children and parents. The next step would be targeting adults."

The records obtained by The Post, which document communications between DPS employees, are entitled: “AG Request Sex Change Data” and “AG data request.” They indicate that Paxton’s office sought the records a month after the state Supreme Court ruled that Paxton and Abbott had overreached in their efforts to investigate families with transgender children for child abuse.

Paxton’s office bypassed the normal channels — DPS’s government relations and general counsel’s offices — and went straight to the driver license division staff in making the request, according to a state employee familiar with it, who said the staff was told that Paxton’s office wanted “numbers” and later would want “a list” of names, as well as “the number of people who had had a legal sex change.”

On November 17, 2023, the Texas Office of the Attorney General made a civil investigative demand from Seattle Children's Hospital in Washington, asking if they were providing gender-affirming care to any Texas children.

The Texas OAG

gave the hospital until Dec. 7 to produce documents to the OAG for the agency to identify the following:

  • All medications prescribed by the hospital to Texas children
  • The number of Texas children treated by the hospital
  • Diagnosis for every medication provided by the hospital to Texas children
  • Texas laboratories that performed lab tests for the hospital prior to prescribing medications
  • Protocol/guidance for treating Texas children diagnosed with gender identity disorder, gender dysphoria or endocrine disorders
  • Protocol/guidance on how to “wean” a Texas child off gender transitioning care

Then, Texas submitted a follow-up demand for the hospital to answer the questions under oath, also by December 7.

On December 7, the Seattle Children's Hospital sued in Travis County District Court. The hospital says that, not only does Texas lack the authority to make this request of a hospital in Washington, but furthermore Washington has a "Shield Law" to protect people's data from this kind of request from other states. The Shield Law covers reproductive care as well as gender-affirming care (n.b., that's why transphobia is related to abortion rights). The hospital "told the court that the hospital does not have property or accounts, nor employees who provide “gender-affirming care” (or administrative services for that care) in Texas or based in Texas." Nor have they advertised their gender-affirming services in Texas. Nor have they provided gender-affirming care to Texas residents via telemedicine. (Source: "Seattle Hospital sues after Texas Attorney General asks for handover of patient records," Cora Neas, KXAN Austin, December 20, 2023)

Paxton also sought information in at least one other state. He requested medical records for trans kids from QueerMed, a telehealth clinic based in Decatur, Georgia. The request was made in late 2023. Although the Washington Post had made a public records request for any requests that Paxton had made of other states, Paxton only supplied the information about his Washington request, not his Georgia request. (The newspaper has appealed to the Travis County district attorney.) QueerMed founder Izzy Lowell spoke to the Washington Post about it on January 28, 2024.

"'This request from the Texas Attorney general is a clear attempt to intimidate providers of gender-affirming care and parents and families that seek that care outside of Texas and other states with bans,' Lowell said in a statement.

Lowell, a family physician, said the clinic stopped providing services to minors in Texas after that state banned gender-affirming care for minors in September. Paxton’s Nov. 17 request, however, was for information about patients dating back to Jan. 1, 2022.

'Let me be clear: QueerMed will never, ever turn over HIPAA-protected patient information,' said Lowell’s statement.

* * *

Paxton has led similar initiatives in Texas. His office investigated clinics in Austin, Dallas and Houston for providing gender-affirming care last year, leading the clinics to close or stop providing services, The Post reported at the time. Paxton’s office also requested records from the Texas Department of Public Safety for those who had changed their sex on their driver’s licenses.

* * *

QueerMed received the Nov. 17 letter on Dec. 7, a delay Lowell attributed to a fire that burned down the care facility’s Decatur office last year. The fire was set intentionally, the Decatur Fire Department said. The perpetrators are still unknown, and the city is collaborating with federal and state agencies to investigate."

— Texas AG seeks transgender records in Georgia as part of his wider probe. Maham Javaid and Molly Hennessy-Fiske. Washington Post. January 29, 2024

In December 2022, a Texas man was charged with threatening a Boston doctor who has transgender patients.

Nov 29, 2022 tweet from Amber Briggle: Im the mother of a transgender child. Last spring Greg Abbott ordered CPS to investigate parents like me for child abuse. A caseworker came to my home, interrogated my children individually & alone, & kept our investigation open for MONTHS despite no evidence of harm or abuse. (thread emoji)

Also: The real agenda here is to dismantle public schools and public libraries. Making it difficult to purchase books privately is an added bonus for them, in part because it serves their goal of dismantling schools and libraries, because as people have less access to information, they'll have less of an idea of why schools and libraries are important.

And this:

Public schools in Texas would have to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year under a bill the Texas Senate approved Thursday.

Senate Bill 1515 by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, now heads to the House for consideration.

* * *

The Senate also gave final passage to Senate Bill 1396, authored by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, which would allow public and charter schools to adopt a policy requiring every campus to set aside a time for students and employees to read the Bible or other religious texts and to pray.

Public schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas Senate", Brian Lopez, Texas Tribune, April 20, 2023.

July 20, 2023, The Hill: "At least 53 bills targeting LGBTQ people have been introduced this year in Texas, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), accounting for more than 10 percent of proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation nationwide. Most of the Texas bills target transgender young people."

In August 2023, a university LGBTQ resource center shut down:

Alan Dettlaff tweets August 19, 2023: This is what it’s like now for LGBTQ+ students at @UHouston. Of course, no one with the university told anyone about this. We found out from these signs which were posted last week.

Banning Dr. Seuss

They were mad because of a discourse over Dr. Seuss. Now they are the ones taking away his books.

Katy ISD bans 14 more books, including Dr. Seuss title, after putting $93K in books in storage, Claire Goodman, Houston Chronicle, Sep. 15, 2023

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan Hilarious. Two years ago, the right were up in arms over the alleged cancelling of Dr Seuss. It was a false story back then. Now they’re doing the actual cancelling of Dr Seuss. Can’t make this stuff up. #EveryAccusationisaConfession Quoting PEN America, September 15, 2023: #Texas: Katy ISD just banned 14 more books, including a Dr. Seuss title, after putting $93,000-worth of books in storage

In October 2023, the Texas Supreme Court was to start hearing arguments by Dianne Hensley, a judge who says people should have the right to refuse to perform same-sex or interfaith marriages if it's against their own beliefs.

On January 22, 2024 (Lil Kalish, HuffPost):

"Five human rights groups issued a letter to the United Nations...arguing that Texas legislation has violated the rights of queer and trans people in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Equality Texas, GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law signed a joint letter urging the United Nations’ human rights experts to call on the federal and Texas state governments to protect LGBTQ+ people.

In the letter, the advocacy groups argue that Texas has violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty, which recognizes the rights of all humans to enjoy “civil and political freedom and freedom from fear.

* * *

Last year, Texas passed seven anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including banning trans athletes from participating in sports at the college level and barring trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care.

In 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) instructed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families of transgender minors on the grounds that affirming a child’s gender identity amounted to “child abuse.”

State Attorney General Ken Paxton has similarly initiated investigations into pharmaceutical companies that sell puberty blockers, according to The Texas Tribune. He has also demanded medical records from Texas patients who sought gender-affirming care at a children’s hospital in Washington state.

These laws and investigations have created a culture of fear, the letter says, and have trickled down into all parts of Texas life. An instance of this occurred last year, when a trans boy in Texas was kicked out of his school play after securing a leading male role."

Parker Molloy on Patreon tips us off to this. Molloy is quoting Will Bunch:

"Everything that’s happening in Abbott’s Texas — the relentless war against liberalism and education itself, the influence of a corporate oligarchy, the surge of Christian nationalism, the war on feminism that features its strict abortion ban, and its own state military and militarized cops now deployed against its own people — is textbook fascism. The crackdown on dissent is the flame that keeps this downward spiral going. Knowing that attending a protest can expose you to legalized vigilante murder is just pouring more Texas crude on the fire.

It’s important to remember that — whether or not you agree with the cause — state violence currently directed at pro-Palestinian protests from Brooklyn to Austin is merely a trial run for what could come if Trump is sworn in for a second presidency in January. He has already pledged to send out troops to crush any Inauguration Day protests. But the best way to stop full-blown autocracy in 2025 is to speak out against the police-state authoritarianism we have now."

— “Scared about America losing democracy? Texas is already gone” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch, 5/19/24)

Can't people just wear their hair however they like?

No, they can't. Would be great if they could. But they aren't allowed to.

The Barbers Hill Independent School District suspended a Black student for his haircut. The district rule is that boys cannot wear their hair "below the top of a t-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down." When challenged, the district superintendent explained: "Being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity." (Texas Superintendent Defends Suspending Black Student Over Locs Hairstyle in Full-Page Ad: ‘Being American Requires Conformity’: Darryl George's family has filed suit claiming the hair policy violates state law. The Messenger. January 18, 2024.)

Can Greg Abbott do things other Texans can't?

Yes. He sued for millions of dollars after a tree fell on him. Then he backed a reform to regulate such lawsuits so others can't have a similar outcome.

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