By Alex Nguyen & William Melhado | AUSTIN – Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Friday a bill that bars transgender kids from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, though the new law could face legal challenges before it takes effect on Sept. 1.

Senate Bill 14’s passage brings to the finish line a legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. Trans kids, their parents and LGBTQ advocacy groups fiercely oppose the law, and some have vowed to stop it from going into effect.

Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the U.S. — is now one of over a dozen states that restrict transition-related care for trans minors.

“Cruelty has always been the point,” said Emmett Schelling, executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas. “It’s not shocking that this governor would sign SB14 right at the beginning of Pride [Month]; however this will not stop trans people from continuing to exist with authenticity — as we always have.”

Authored by New Braunfels Republican state Sen. Donna Campbell, the law bars trans kids from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, treatments many medical groups support. Children already receiving these treatments will have to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner. The law also bans transition-related surgeries for kids, though those are rarely performed on minors.

Those who support the law claim that health care providers have capitalized on a “social contagion” to misguide parents and push life-altering treatments on kids who may later regret their decisions. SB 14’s supporters have also disputed the science and research behind transition-related care.

But trans kids, their parents and major medical groups say these medical treatments are important to protecting the mental health of an already vulnerable population, which faces a higher risk of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. At the same time, doctors say cutting off these treatments — gradually or abruptly — could bring both physical discomfort and psychological distress to trans youth, some of whom have called it forced detransitioning.

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center pledged on May 18 to fight SB 14 in court. They have yet to file a lawsuit.

“Transgender people have always been here and will always be here,” Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas, said Friday. “Our trans youth deserve a world where they can shine alongside their peers, and we will keep advocating for that world in and out of the courts.”

This legal threat is not new; some of these groups have sued several other states over their restrictions. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice also joined the legal fight against Tennessee’s ban.

While the lawsuits are tailored to each state, Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal and the director of its Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project, told the Texas Tribune last month that a major common challenge to the laws hinges on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the argument that these laws are stopping trans kids from accessing the same medical treatments that are still available to their cisgender peers.

Buchert added that the lawsuits’ immediate goal is generally to get a preliminary injunction to stop these laws from taking effect, a tactic that has seen some success.

“It’s one thing to see some of the things that state legislators do, but it’s a completely different thing when you’re under the white-hot spotlight of judicial scrutiny,” she said.

And prior to SB 14, the ACLU and Lambda Legal successfully sued Texas last year to halt state-ordered child abuse investigations of parents who provide their trans kids with access to transition-related care. Impeached attorney general Ken Paxton later appealed the decision in March, but the 3rd Court of Appeals has yet to issue a ruling on it.

“It’s a privilege to be able to fight,” Buchert said about the ongoing court challenges that Lambda Legal is involved in.

Los Angeles Blade Editor’s Note:

In a late Friday evening phone call, Landon Richie, with the Transgender Education Network of Texas, told the Blade:

“Today Governor Abbott signed cruelty into law. Legislation that purports to “protect youth” while stripping them of the life-saving, life-giving care that they receive will cost lives, and that’s not an exaggeration. Trans kids deserve not only to exist, but to thrive as their authentic selves in every facet of their lives, and we will never stop fighting to to actualize a world where that is undisputed. Despite efforts by our state, trans people will always exist in Texas, as we always have, and we will continue to exist brilliantly and boldly, and with endless care for one another.”

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Disclosure: The ACLU of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

By William Melhado | AUSTIN – The Texas Legislature gave final approval Sunday to a bill that will criminalize performers that put on sexually explicit shows in front of children as well as any businesses that host them.

Originally designed as legislation to restrict minors from attending certain drag shows, lawmakers agreed on bill language that removed direct reference to drag performers just before an end-of-day deadline. The bill now goes to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

Under Senate Bill 12, business owners would face a $10,000 fine for hosting sexually explicit performances in which someone is nude or appeals to the “prurient interest in sex.” Performers caught violating the proposed restriction could be slapped with a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

After lawmakers from both chambers met in a conference committee to hash out the differences between their versions of the bill, the House and Senate released a new one that expanded the penal code’s definition of sexual conduct. The bill classifies as sexual conduct the use of “accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics,” accompanied with sexual gesticulations.

Advocates said this addition is aimed at drag queens’ props and costumes, which is evidence that lawmakers are still targeting the LGBTQ community.

Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, amended the legislation in the House by removing explicit reference to drag. Shaheen told The Texas Tribune that members had viewed videos of performances in which children were exposed to “lewd, disgusting, inappropriate stuff.” He said the updated bill addresses what was in those videos. Shaheen did not specify which videos concerned lawmakers.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, authored SB 12 after a small but loud group of activists and extremist groups fueled anti-drag panic by filming drag shows and posting the videos on social media. Those groups characterized all drag as inherently sexual regardless of the content or audience, which resonated with top GOP leaders in the state, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Advocates say the revisions to the legislation still target drag, even if those types of performances aren’t directly mentioned in the bill.

Brigitte Bandit, an Austin-based drag performer, criticized the addition of “accessories or prosthetics” to the bill. Drag artists performing in front of children don’t wear sexually explicit costumes, Bandit said, adding that this bill creates a lot of confusion over what is and isn’t acceptable to do at drag shows.

“Is me wearing a padded bra going to be [considered] enhancing sexual features?” Bandit asked. “It’s still really vague but it’s still geared to try to target drag performance, which is what this bill has been trying to do this entire time, right?”

Shaheen said that including direct reference to drag performers wasn’t necessary to the intent of the bill, which was to restrict children from seeing sexually explicit material.

“You want it to cover inappropriate drag shows, but you [also] want it to cover if a stripper starts doing stuff in front of a child,” Shaheen said.

Rep. Mary González, D-Clint, spoke against the bill Sunday just before the House gave it final approval in a 87-54 vote. She criticized the removal of language that previously narrowed the bill’s enforcement to only businesses. González warned that the bill’s vague language could lead to a “domino effect” of consequences.

“The broadness could negatively implicate even the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders,” said González. “It can go into your homes and say what is allowed in your homes after the lines ‘commercial enterprise’ were stricken out.”

During a House hearing on SB 12, Democrats questioned whether the bill’s language would also ensnare restaurants like Twin Peaks that feature scantily clad servers. Shaheen said the way the bill is written exempts these types of performances.

LGBTQ lawmakers applauded the removal of the direct reference to drag performers. But advocates fear the phrase “prurient interest in sex” could be interpreted broadly since Texas law doesn’t have a clear definition of the term, said Brian Klosterboer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas who testified against the bill in a House committee.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the term is defined as “erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” though the language’s interpretation varies by community.

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William Melhado

[email protected]

@williammelhado

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

LA Blade Editor’s note: For the vast majority of the past ten years the Texas Attorney General has waged a relentless campaign to limit the rights and equality of LGBTQ+ Texans, especially transgender Texans. Today’s vote is significant in terms of the possibility that a Senate conviction would offer a potential respite from Paxton’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.

By  Zach Despart & James Barragan | AUSTIN – In a history-making late-afternoon vote, a divided Texas House chose Saturday to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, temporarily removing him from office over allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office.

The vote to adopt the 20 articles of impeachment was 121-23.

Attention next shifts to the Texas Senate, which will conduct a trial with senators acting as jurors and designated House members presenting their case as impeachment managers.

Permanently removing Paxton from office and barring him from holding future elected office in Texas would require the support of two-thirds of senators.

The move to impeach came less than a week after the House General Investigating Committee revealed that it was investigating Paxton for what members described as a yearslong pattern of misconduct and questionable actions that include bribery, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. They presented the case against him Saturday, acknowledging the weight of their actions.

“Today is a very grim and difficult day for this House and for the state of Texas,” Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, a committee member, told House members.

“We have a duty and an obligation to protect the citizens of Texas from elected officials who abuse their office and their powers for personal gain,” Spiller said. “As a body, we should not be complicit in allowing that behavior.”

Paxton supporters criticized the impeachment proceedings as rushed, secretive and based on hearsay accounts of actions taken by Paxton, who was not given the opportunity to defend himself to the investigating committee.

“This process is indefensible,” said Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, who complained that the vote was taking place on a holiday weekend before members had time to conduct a thorough review of the accusations. “It concerns me a lot because today it could be General Paxton, tomorrow it could be you and the next day it could be me.”

Saturday’s vote temporarily removes a controversial but influential Republican figure in Texas and nationally. He has led an office that initiated lawsuits that overturned or blocked major Biden and Obama administration policies, sought to reverse Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020, aggressively pursued voter fraud claims and targeted hospitals that provided gender care to minors.

The Legislature had impeached state officials just twice since 1876 — and never an attorney general — but the House committee members who proposed impeachment argued Saturday that Paxton’s misconduct in office was so egregious that it warranted his removal.

“This gentleman is no longer fit for service or for office,” said committee member Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston. “Either this is going to be the beginning of the end of his criminal reign, or God help us with the harms that will come to all Texans if he’s allowed to stay the top cop on the take, if millions of Texans can’t trust us to do the right thing, right here, right now.”

Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, a member of the investigative committee, used his presentation time to criticize Paxton for calling representatives as they worked on the House floor to “personally threaten them with political consequences in the next election” if they supported impeachment.

Speaking against impeachment, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, called the process “wrong.”

“Don’t end our session this way. Don’t tarnish this institution,” Tinderholt said. “Don’t cheapen the act of impeachment. Don’t undermine the will of the voters. Don’t give Democrats another victory handed to them on a silver platter.”

The vote came as hardline conservatives supportive of Paxton’s aggressive strategy of suing the Biden administration were lining up in support of him. Former President Donald Trump — a close political ally to Paxton — blasted the impeachment proceedings as an attempt to unseat “the most hard working and effective” attorney general and thwart the “large number of American Patriots” who voted for Paxton.

Trump vowed to target any Republican who voted to impeach Paxton.

As lawmakers listened to the committee members make their case, Paxton took to social media to boost conservatives who had come to his defense, including Trump, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, and conservative radio host Grant Stinchfield, who tweeted, “Kangaroo Court in Texas.”

About 90 minutes into the debate, the official Twitter account of the Texas attorney general’s office began tweeting at members of the committee to challenge some of the claims being made.

“Please tell the truth,” the agency’s account said.

Because Paxton was impeached while the Legislature was in session, the Texas Constitution requires the Senate to remain in Austin after the regular session ends Monday or set a trial date for the future, with no deadline for a trial spelled out in the law.

Impeachment represents the greatest political threat to date for Paxton, who has been reelected twice despite a 2015 indictment for felony securities fraud and an ongoing federal investigation into allegations of official misconduct that began in 2020.

The impeachment vote, on the third-to-last day of the regular legislative session, capped a tumultuous week at the Capitol. From Tuesday to Thursday:

• Paxton abruptly accused House Speaker Dade Phelan of presiding over the chamber while drunk and demanded that he resign.
• The House General Investigating Committee revealed it had been investigating Paxton in secret since March.
• The committee heard a three-hour presentation from its investigators detailing allegations of corruption against the attorney general.
• The committee’s three Republicans and two Democrats voted to forward 20 articles of impeachment to the full House.

Paxton, who was comfortably elected to a third term last year, made a rare appearance before assembled reporters Friday to criticize the process, saying he was not given a chance to present favorable evidence. He called impeachment an effort by Democrats and “liberal” Republicans to remove him from office, violating the will of voters and sidelining an effective warrior against Biden administration policies.

“The corrupt politicians in the Texas House are demonstrating that blind loyalty to Speaker Dade Phelan is more important than upholding their oath of office,” Paxton said. He added, “They are showcasing their absolute contempt for the electoral process.”

Many of the articles of impeachment focused on allegations that Paxton had repeatedly abused his powers of office to help a political donor and friend, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In fall 2020, eight top deputies in the attorney general’s office approached federal and state investigators to report their concerns about Paxton’s relationship with Paul.

All eight quit or were fired in the following months, and most of the details of their allegations against Paxton were revealed in a lawsuit by four former executives who claim they were fired — in violation of the Texas Whistleblower Act — in retaliation for reporting Paxton to the authorities. Paxton’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit is awaiting action by the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals.

According to the lawsuit, the whistleblowers accused Paxton of engaging in a series of “intense and bizarre” actions to help Paul, including intervening in an open-records case to help Paul gain documents from federal and state investigations into the real estate investor’s businesses. They also accused Paxton of directing his agency to intervene in a lawsuit between Paul and a charity, pushing through a rushed legal opinion to help Paul avoid a pending foreclosure sale on properties and ignoring agency rules to hire an outside lawyer to pursue an investigation helpful to Paul’s businesses.

In return, the whistleblower lawsuit alleged, Paul paid for all or part of a major renovation of a home Paxton owns in Austin. Paul also helped Paxton keep an extramarital affair quiet by employing the woman Paxton had been seeing, the lawsuit said, adding that the attorney general may also have been motivated by a $25,000 contribution Paul made to Paxton’s campaign in 2018.

In their report to the House General Investigating Committee on Wednesday, the panel’s investigators concluded that Paxton may have committed numerous crimes and violated his oath of office.

Investigators said possible felonies included abuse of official capacity by, among other actions, diverting staff time to help Paul at a labor cost of at least $72,000; misuse of official information by possibly helping Paul gain access to investigative documents; and retaliation and official oppression by firing employees who complained of Paxton’s actions to the FBI.

The articles of impeachment accused Paxton of accepting bribes, disregarding his official duties and misapplying public resources to help Paul.

The articles also referred to felony charges of securities fraud, and one felony count of failing to register with state securities officials, that have been pending against Paxton since 2015, months after he took office as attorney general. The fraud charges stem from Paxton’s work in 2011 to solicit investors in Servergy Inc. without disclosing that the McKinney company was paying him for the work.

The impeachment articles also accused Paxton of obstruction of justice by acting to delay the criminal cases with legal challenges and because a Paxton donor pursued legal action that limited the pay to prosecutors in the case, causing further delays “to Paxton’s advantage.”

Taken in total, the accusations showed a pattern of dereliction of duty in violation of the Texas Constitution, Paxton’s oaths of office and state laws against public officials acting against the public’s interest, the impeachment resolution said.

“Paxton engaged in misconduct, private or public, of such character as to indicate his unfitness for office,” the articles said.

An attorney general had never before been impeached by the Legislature, an extraordinary step that lawmakers have reserved for public officials who faced serious allegations of misconduct. Only two Texas officials have been removed from office by Senate conviction, Gov. James Ferguson in 1917 and District Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975.

If Paxton is to survive, he will need to secure the support of 11 senators. With the 12 Democratic senators likely to support his removal, votes for acquittal would need to come from the 19 Republican members.

None has publicly defended Paxton. In a television interview Thursday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, said merely that he believed senators would be responsible jurors and “do their duty.”

A complicating factor is Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, Paxton’s wife. State law requires all senators to attend an impeachment trial, though whether she will recuse herself from voting is unclear.

Paxton’s political base lies in the far-right faction of the Republican Party, where he has positioned himself as a champion of conservative causes and a thorn in the side of Democratic President Joe Biden. Paxton has criticized his opponents as RINOs (Republicans in name only) who “want nothing more than to sabotage our legal challenges to Biden’s extremist agenda by taking me out.”

He also retained the backing of the state Republican Party, led by former state Rep. Matt Rinaldi, who frequently attacks Republicans he considers to be insufficiently conservative. On Friday, Rinadi said the impeachment was Phelan’s fault for allowing Democrats to have too much influence in the House.

“The impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General are but the latest front in the Texas House’s war against Republicans to stop the conservative direction of her state,” Rinaldi said in a statement.

Paxton also has maintained a close relationship with Trump and filed an unsuccessful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the 2020 presidential election. Paxton also spoke at Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before the president’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Related:

Paxton’s transgender “list:” A chilling abuse of government power

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Zach Despart

[email protected]

@zachdespart

James Barragán

[email protected]

@James_Barragan

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

By Alex Nguyen | AUSTIN – Texas is on the brink of banning transgender minors from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, treatments that leading medical groups say are important to supporting their mental health.

The Senate has voted 19-12 Wednesday to accept Senate Bill 14’s House version and send it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, two days after the lower chamber passed the legislation. Legal groups opposing the bill — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center — said Thursday they will launch a legal challenge to try and block the legislation from taking effect.

SB 14 is a legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. It’s also a key proposal among a slate of GOP bills that would restrict the rights and representation of LGBTQ Texans this session, amid a growing acceptance of Christian nationalism on the right.

Authored by New Braunfels Republican Sen. Donna Campbell, SB 14 would prohibit trans Texans under the age of 18 from accessing transition-related medical treatments including puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries — though surgeries are rarely performed on kids.

The bill would also require trans youth who are already getting this care to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner. This is slightly out of step with the abrupt cutoff mandated by the version the Senate approved last month, but the upper chamber has chosen not to ask for a conference committee to iron out the difference.

In pushing for SB 14, Campbell and other backers have disputed the research and science behind transition-related care. They also say the legislation is an effort to save Texas families from health care providers who are taking advantage of a “social contagion” and pushing life-altering treatments on kids who may later regret taking them.

“We are the Legislature — our job is to protect people,” Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said. “We protect children against lots of things. We don’t let them smoke. We don’t let them drink. We don’t let them buy lottery cards. … And so we are doing the right thing.”

Medical groups, trans Texans and their families, however, say this care is vital to trans youths’ mental health. Treatments are also not rushed, they say. Instead, it’s a time-intensive process to access this care, including multiple required medical evaluations.

They have also warned that the House version’s proposed tapering off process is still likely to bring physical discomfort and psychological distress to a group that is already more likely to be at risk of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. Some have also called it forced detransitioning.

“That would push me past my breaking point,” said Randell, a 16-year-old trans boy from North Texas who has been on hormone therapies for the past few years. He agreed to speak with The Texas Tribune if only this full name isn’t used to protect his safety.

If Abbott supports SB 14 becoming law, the proposed ban would take effect on Sept. 1. His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Though in 2022, the governor had ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents, who provided their trans kids access to transition-related care, for child abuse.

Pending his support, Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the country, including around 30,000 teens between the ages of 13 and 17 — would become one of over a dozen states that restrict transition-related care for trans minors. The ACLU, Lambda Legal and other advocacy groups for LGBTQ rights have sued several of them.

Texas lawmakers “are hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth, in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care as appropriate and necessary,” the legal groups said in a joint statement Thursday. “We will defend the rights of transgender youth in court, just as we have done in other states engaging in this anti-science and discriminatory fear-mongering.”

And already, the prospect of losing access to these treatments has prompted many parents of trans kids — including Randell’s — to consider traveling out of state for care or flee Texas altogether, costly options that are not available to all. Others have also spoken publicly about not wanting to abandon the community that they love or that their families have been in for generations.

“We’re not going to be able to know how many children will be ‘saved,’ as it’s been called, from this lifestyle, but we will definitely be able to track what harm it may cause,” said Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, on Wednesday. “It is my hope that every child affected by this bill can have a chance to grow up and see that things will get better.”

Disclosure: The ACLU of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

**********************

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

By Alex Nguyen & William Melhado | AUSTIN – Texas has taken a major step toward banning transgender minors from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapy — care that medical groups say is vital to their mental health — after the state House approved Senate Bill 14 on Monday.

Trans Texans and LGBTQ advocates consider the bill one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in this year’s legislative session. It would ban trans people younger than 18 from getting certain transition-related care. Kids already accessing treatments would have to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner, the bill says. It also bans transition-related surgeries, though those are rarely performed on kids.

The House formally approved the bill in a 87-56 vote Monday largely on party lines, though some Democrats once again defected to vote in favor of the bill. They include state Reps. Harold Dutton of Houston, Tracy King of Batesville, Shawn Thierry of Houston and Abel Herrero of Robstown. The bill will now return to the Senate, which has already passed a version of the legislation that mandates an abrupt cutoff instead of a tapering off process. The Senate can now ask for a conference committee to iron out the difference — or accept the House’s changes and send the bill to Gov. Greg Abbott.

As SB 14 advances, Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the country — is moving ever closer to joining over a dozen states in restricting transition-related care for minors. The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal have already raised legal challenges against several of them. And judges have so far blocked the efforts to limit these treatments for trans youth in Alabama and Arkansas.

Compared to the House’s previous attempts to consider the bill, there were far fewer proponents or opponents of the bill in the public gallery Monday. Yet at the start of the Monday debate, a protestor briefly chanted “Protect Trans Kids!” from the gallery. According to the Department of Public Safety, police removed three people from the gallery for displaying a banner and disrupting a public meeting, and issued them a criminal trespass warning that prohibits them from being in the Capitol for a year.

Monday’s brief debate and vote followed over five hours of pushback from Democrats on Friday. After successfully delaying the bill on a technically twice in early May, Democrats once again tried to raise points of order — a parliamentary maneuver aimed at delaying or defeating bills — but their efforts failed last week.

“I hate bullies. I hate when we pick on people who can’t defend themselves,” Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said Monday in his speech pushing back against SB 14. “To me, this legislation is a type of bullying.”

Trans Texans, their families and medical groups say transition-related care is critical to supporting the mental health of trans youth, who are already facing higher risks of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. Getting access to these treatments, they say, is time intensive and requires multiple medical evaluations. Parents are included in decisions about what treatments, if any, are best for individual children.

“The bill in front of us today is banning health care,” state Rep. Mary González, D-Clint, said Friday while advocating for a failed amendment that would have largely foiled the legislation on Friday. “Politics shouldn’t determine health care, period.”

Some Democratic lawmakers, including the nine openly LGBTQ state representatives, stood outside the chamber prior to debate Friday and read letters from trans youth who would be affected by SB 14 and their families. And earlier in the day, LGBTQ Texans and their allies marched to the Capitol to protest the legislation, just over a week after state police forcefully booted scores of them from the Capitol and handcuffed two.

“We’re rising up. The whole LGBTQIA community is fighting back against a group of people who, at their core, don’t want us to exist,” said Danielle Skidmore, a longtime Austin resident and trans woman who came to the Capitol on Friday to protest the bill.

SB 14’s supporters have pushed back against the science and research behind transition-related care. They say the bill is meant to protect parents from health care providers who are taking advantage of a “social contagion” and pushing life-altering treatments on kids who may later regret taking them.

“Let me begin to say that there is no high-quality scientific evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries help children,” Cypress Republican state Rep. Tom Oliverson, the bill’s key sponsor in the lower chamber, said Friday.

Oliverson found support from attendees Friday with red T-shirts that said “save Texas kids.” Some also sang and prayed outside of the gallery Friday morning before the House convened.

Ruth Potts, a grandmother from Fort Worth, was at the Capitol for the fourth time this year to support SB 14. She said trans children should wait until they are 18 years old to undergo medical treatments.

“This is not the time to be making these decisions,” she said. “It’s important that children are allowed to be children.”

The proposal is a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the upper chamber, and the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. The proposed ban is among a slate of Republican bills seeking to restrict the rights and representation of LGBTQ Texans. They are also coming amid a growing acceptance of Christian nationalism on the right, which has prompted some conservative lawmakers to push for legislation that could further infuse Christianity into the public sphere.

“I am beyond angry that we must keep showing up to defend the dignity, privacy and liberty of our neighbors,” Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, said Friday. “This is part of a nefarious plan to eliminate us from public life. But it won’t work. We will not stop fighting for our rights. Not now, not ever.”

The House has traditionally acted as a foil on some of the Senate’s most socially conservative endeavors. Many LGBTQ Texans — and conservatives — wondered if the lower chamber would stop SB 14.

In April, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, declined to comment on the legislation. In 2019, when he was a House committee chair, he told The Texas Tribune he was “kind of done talking about bashing on the gay community. It’s completely unacceptable.” On Thursday, he praised SB 14’s advancement.

“In Texas, we will not tolerate bad actors taking advantage of our most vulnerable population, and we will not stand for minors being influenced to make life-altering decisions until they are of legal adult age,” he said in a statement following the Friday vote.

According to a recent poll from the University of Texas at Austin, 58% of Texas voters support barring health care providers from offering gender-affirming care to minors. Its February survey also found that 59% of voters don’t personally know an openly trans person.

Thierry, the lone Democrat to publicly speak in favor of SB 14 during Friday’s debate, said she voted for it with “an open heart and clear mind.”

“As a thoughtful legislator, mother, woman of faith and child advocate, I have made a decision to place the safety and well-being of all young people over the comfort of political expediency,” she said.

During the Friday debate, other Democrats took aim at how a committee hearing on the legislation limited the number of people who could testify and how it appeared the number of supporters and opponents were about equal when there were actually fewer than 100 people in favor of the bill and more than 2,400 against it. In addition, they raised questions about whether SB 14 would prevent trans minors from receiving medical treatments still available to other children, which could be aimed at helping any potential future legal challenge based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

Openly LGBTQ state representatives also spoke against the bill while referencing their own lived experiences and communities.

“This is today’s [Defense of Marriage Act],” said state Rep. Ann Johnson, a lesbian Houston Democrat.

Oliverson, who faced a barrage of questions from Democrats on Friday, largely stayed focused on his criticism of the science and research behind transition-related treatments.

“​​The science on gender dysphoria lacks sufficient high-quality evidence documented, and there’s a growing list of harms, established side effects that accompany patients,” he said.

And throughout the Friday debate, Democrats tried to shut down or soften SB 14’s proposed restrictions by proposing 18 amendments, but saw no success.

In particular, one failed proposal from state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso would have allowed trans minors receiving transition-related medical treatments before June 1 to continue getting that care. This amendment was similar to what the Senate approved — but then backtracked on — last month. Oliverson had initially expressed support for the exemption when the upper chamber first voted for it, but he disapproved of Moody’s proposal Friday.

Republicans also shot down a proposal from state Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, that sought to study for five years the rates of suicide among trans kids, who would be affected if SB 14 becomes law. Oliverson said he takes this issue seriously, but cautioned against pushing a narrative that the risk of suicide is high or guaranteed if trans kids don’t receive transition-related care.

Earlier Friday, Democratic lawmakers stood outside the House chamber and read letters from trans youth and their families detailing the harm the state government has already inflicted on their lives. House members shared stories of Texas families who left their home state and children wrestling with thoughts of suicide.

State Rep. Julie Johnson read a letter from a family that fled Texas after Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion that families providing gender-affirming care to their kids should be investigated for child abuse.

“We are the ones protecting children. It is the state Legislature that has decided to hurt them,” the Farmers Branch Democrat read.

In early May, Mary González successfully cut short the House debate on the legislation twice by raising points of order. These roadblocks had visibly frustrated GOP lawmakers, who quickly vowed to put the bill back on track after the second delay. The Republican Party of Texas had also publicly urged its legislators to appeal any decision by Phelan that would allow for more delays.

Since the 2021 legislative session and over the past few months, the looming prospect of losing this health care has already spurred some families with trans kids to start planning for ways to get treatments outside of the state or flee Texas entirely. But traveling or moving is cost-prohibitive for some families. Many parents of trans kids have also testified about having been in Texas for generations and not wanting to uproot themselves from the communities that they love.

Skidmore, one of the bill protesters at the Capitol on Friday, said animosity from the Texas Republicans directed at transgender people has felt increasingly aggressive and violent.

“Seeing all the energy, all the hate directed against children breaks my heart,” she said.

And at least one Dallas mother, who has been a vocal advocate for her trans daughter, is not planning to leave the state at this point.

“There are a lot of families that are leaving, but I refuse to let my government force me out of my home,” Rachel Gonzales said on the eve of the Friday vote.

“I fully recognize that if we’re able to find a way to stay here safely, that is a point of privilege because so many people are going to be so deeply impacted,” she added. “But trans kids have always existed. Trans adults have always existed. And no matter how hard [lawmakers] try, they’re not going to be able to eliminate their existence from this state and it’s disgusting that they keep trying.”

Following Friday’s vote, dozens of other LGBTQ advocates walked away from the Capitol to the nearby Waterloo Park to show their solidarity with the queer community. Marti Bier, the vice president for programs for Texas Freedom Network, an advocacy group that works on LGBTQ issues, dreaded the conservations parents will have to face since gender-affirming care for their children could soon illegal in Texas.

“Even though you can expect something like this to happen, it still feels really overwhelming, the consequences for real kids and real families,” said Bier, wiping away tears as they left the Capitol Friday evening.

In her Monday speech opposing the bill, state Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, had a message for trans kids in Texas: “You are beautiful. You are loved.”

Zach Despart, Eleanor Klibanoff and Karen Brooks Harper contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Equality Texas, Texas Freedom Network and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

*****************************************************************************************

The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

**********************

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

By Alex Nguyen & William Melhjado | AUSTIN – Texas has taken a major step toward banning transgender minors from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapy — care that medical groups say is vital to their mental health — after the state House gave Senate Bill 14 initial approval Friday.

Trans Texans and LGBTQ advocates consider the bill one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in this year’s legislative session. It would ban trans people younger than 18 from getting certain transition-related care. Kids already accessing treatments would have to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner, the bill says. It also bans transition-related surgeries, though those are rarely performed on kids.

The House’s 91-49 vote to advance the bill followed over five hours of pushback from Democrats, who had successfully delayed the bill on a technicality twice last week. On Friday, Democratic lawmakers once again tried to raise points of order, a parliamentary maneuver aimed at delaying or defeating bills, but their efforts failed this time. Though Democratic state Rep. Shawn Thierry of Houston, voted for SB 14 after giving a speech in support of the bill.

As SB 14 advances, Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the country — is moving ever closer to joining over a dozen states in restricting transition-related care for minors. The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal have already raised legal challenges against several of them. And judges have so far blocked the efforts to limit these treatments for trans youth in Alabama and Arkansas.

Pending one more final vote in the House, SB 14 would return to the Senate, which has already passed a version of the legislation that mandates an abrupt cutoff as opposed to a tapering off process.

Trans Texans, their families and medical groups say transition-related care is critical to supporting the mental health of trans youth, who are already facing higher risks of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. Getting access to these treatments, they say, is time intensive and requires multiple medical evaluations. Parents are included in decisions about what treatments, if any, are best for individual children.

“The bill in front of us today is banning health care,” said state Rep. Mary González, D-Clint, while advocating for a failed amendment that would have largely foiled the legislation. “Politics shouldn’t determine health care, period.”

Some Democratic lawmakers, including the nine openly LGBTQ state representatives, stood outside the chamber prior to debate and read letters from trans youth who would be affected by SB 14 and their families. And earlier in the day, LGBTQ Texans and their allies marched to the Capitol to protest the legislation, just over a week after state police forcefully booted scores of them from the Capitol and handcuffed two.

“We’re rising up. The whole LGBTQIA community is fighting back against a group of people who, at their core, don’t want us to exist,” said Danielle Skidmore, a longtime Austin resident and trans woman who came to the Capitol on Friday to protest the bill.

SB 14’s supporters have pushed back against the science and research behind transition-related care. They say the bill is meant to protect parents from health care providers who are taking advantage of a “social contagion” and pushing life-altering treatments on kids who may later regret taking them.

“Let me begin to say that there is no high quality scientific evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries help children,” Cypress Republican state Rep. Tom Oliverson, the bill’s key sponsor in the lower chamber, said Friday.

Oliverson found support from attendees with red T-shirts that said “save Texas kids.” Some also sang and prayed outside of the gallery Friday morning before the House convened.

Ruth Potts, a grandmother from Fort Worth, was at the Capitol for the fourth time this year to support SB 14. She said trans children should wait until they are 18 years old to undergo medical treatments.

“This is not the time to be making these decisions,” she said. “It’s important that children are allowed to be children.”

The proposal is a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the upper chamber, and the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. The proposed ban is among a slate of Republican bills seeking to restrict the rights and representation of LGBTQ Texans. They are also coming amid a growing acceptance of Christian nationalism on the right, which has prompted some conservative lawmakers to push for legislation that could further infuse Christianity into the public sphere.

According to a recent poll from the University of Texas at Austin, 58% of Texas voters support barring health care providers from offering gender-affirming care to minors — though its February survey also finds that 59% of voters also don’t personally know an openly trans person.

Thierry, the lone Democrat to publicly speak in favor of SB 14 during Friday’s debate, said she voted for it with “an open heart and clear mind.”

“As a thoughtful legislator, mother, woman of faith and child advocate, I have made a decision to place the safety and well-being of all young people over the comfort of political expediency,” she said.

During the Friday debate, other Democrats took aim at how a committee hearing on the legislation limited the number of people who could testify and how it appeared the number of supporters and opponents were about equal when there were actually fewer than 100 people in favor of the bill and more than 2,400 against it. In addition, they raised questions about whether SB 14 would prevent trans minors from receiving medical treatments still available to other children, which could be aimed at helping any potential future legal challenge based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

Openly LGBTQ state representatives also spoke against the bill while referencing their own lived experiences and communities.

“This is today’s [Defense of Marriage Act],” said state Rep. Ann Johnson, a lesbian Houston Democrat.

Oliverson, who faced a barrage of questions from Democrats, largely stayed focused on his criticism of the science and research behind transition-related treatments.

“​​The science on gender dysphoria lacks sufficient high-quality evidence documented, and there’s a growing list of harms, established side effects that accompany patients,” he said.

And throughout the debate, Democrats tried to shut down or soften SB 14’s proposed restrictions by proposing 18 amendments, but saw no success.

In particular, one failed proposal from state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso would have allowed trans minors receiving transition-related medical treatments before June 1 to continue getting that care. This amendment was similar to what the Senate approved — but then backtracked on — last month. Oliverson had initially expressed support for the exemption when the upper chamber first voted for it, but he disapproved of Moody’s proposal Friday.

Republicans also shot down a proposal from state Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, that sought to study for five years the rates of suicide among trans kids, who would be affected if SB 14 becomes law. Oliverson said he takes this issue seriously, but cautioned against pushing a narrative that the risk of suicide is high or guaranteed if trans kids don’t receive transition-related care.

Earlier Friday, Democratic lawmakers stood outside the House chamber and read letters from trans youth and their families detailing the harm the state government has already inflicted on their lives. House members shared stories of Texas families who left their home state and children wrestling with thoughts of suicide.

“We moved back to Texas because we wanted our kids to know their grandparents, their aunts, their uncles, their cousins, we wanted family barbecues. … These attacks have cost us that, too. Now we’re five states away rebuilding our lives, isolated and removed from most of our extended family,” said state Rep. Julie Johnson, reading a letter from a family that fled Texas after Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion that families providing gender-affirming care to their kids should be investigated for child abuse.

“We are the ones protecting children. It is the state Legislature that has decided to hurt them,” the Farmers Branch Democrat read.

Last week, González successfully cut short the House debate on the legislation twice by raising points of order. These roadblocks had visibly frustrated GOP lawmakers, who quickly vowed to put the bill back on track after the second delay. The Republican Party of Texas had also publicly urged its legislators to appeal any decision by House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, that would allow for more delays.

The bill’s supporters had similarly voiced their dismay. Beverly Gatlin, who traveled to Austin from Waxahachie twice last week to support SB 14, expressed doubt last Friday that she could keep returning if the bill continues to get stalled. She said she was annoyed at Democrats for “nitpicking these little things,” but she also wished the Republicans seeking to pass it would have paid closer attention.

“It’s frustrating that they can’t get this together,” Gatlin said. “This is a lot of money, a lot of time. We’re busy, too.”

Meanwhile, trans Texans and LGBTQ advocacy groups said the Democrats’ efforts gave them hope — even as they knew fighting the bill would be an uphill battle. Before SB 14 even came to the chamber floor, it had already garnered enough support to pass.

“I know that the entire world doesn’t hate me,” Randell, a 16-year-old trans boy from North Texas, said after the delay last Friday. He agreed to speak with The Texas Tribune only if his full name isn’t used in order to protect his safety. “But [the bill] is going to pass — no one’s doubting that,” he added. “We’re just pushing it off as much as we can.”

Since the 2021 legislative session and over the past few months, the looming prospect of losing this health care has already spurred some families with trans kids to start planning for ways to get treatments outside of the state or flee Texas entirely. But traveling or moving is cost-prohibitive for some families. Many parents of trans kids have also testified about having been in Texas for generations and not wanting to uproot themselves from the communities that they love.

Skidmore, one of the bill protesters at the Capitol on Friday, said animosity from the Texas Republicans directed at transgender people has felt increasingly aggressive and violent.

“Seeing all the energy, all the hate directed against children breaks my heart,” she said.

And at least one Dallas mother, who has been a vocal advocate for her trans daughter, is not planning to leave the state at this point.

“There are a lot of families that are leaving, but I refuse to let my government force me out of my home,” Rachel Gonzales said on the eve of the Friday vote.

“I fully recognize that if we’re able to find a way to stay here safely, that is a point of privilege because so many people are going to be so deeply impacted,” she added. “But trans kids have always existed. Trans adults have always existed. And no matter how hard [lawmakers] try, they’re not going to be able to eliminate their existence from this state and it’s disgusting that they keep trying.”

Karen Brooks Harper contributed to this story.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

*****************************************************************************************

The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

**********************

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

AUSTIN – Brigitte Bandit is more familiar with walking the runway at drag shows and the red carpet at events like the GLAAD Awards, rather than an aisle inside the Texas State House in Austin. But the popular drag queen made a return trip to the capitol Wednesday to again argue against passage of what opponents call “the anti-drag bill,” Senate Bill 12. 

This time, Republican Rep. Hunter Todd, the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, tried to cut off Brigitte before she was finished speaking, resulting in a police escort straight out of the House chamber. 

“The people who claim I threaten the safety of children have no evidence for such claims,” she said. When she testified in March against the same measure, Brigette told lawmakers, “Drag is simply a form of art.”  

Brigitte showed off her artistic abilities on Wednesday by not only appearing in full drag regalia but also wearing a gown that she adorned with the names of the victims of gun violence in Uvalde and Allen, Texas. 

while wearing the names of the victims of the Uvalde and Allen shootings and after waiting 13 hours to speak, I was escorted out by police for testifying seconds over my allotted time to address the real harm that threatens TX kids: gun violence, not drag queens. pic.twitter.com/nyQiEg20n9

— Brigitte Bandit💘 (@BrigitteBandit) May 11, 2023

After waiting 13 hours to deliver her testimony, Brigitte talked about a state representative who had to resign over inappropriate conduct with a teenager, and about the neo-Nazis who waved flags with swastikas to protest an all-ages drag event this past weekend. She also mentioned the Nazi, antisemitic and white supremacy ties of the gunman in the Allen, Texas mall murders that killed eight people including children.  

“By passing this legislation,” Brigitte said, “you stand with the side of these hate groups and violence, real violence that is actually threatening our Texas children.”

That’s when a flashing red light and loud signal indicated her two minutes were up. The chairman started talking over Brigitte as she continued her testimony without stopping. 

“I urge you to do better not only for our community but for the families of Uvalde and now Allen, whose names I wear, and who you have failed by spending more time on this legislative session targeting drag queens than gun violence,” she said, ignoring the chairman. “Texans deserve better. Focus on the real issues. Please stand against extremism.” 

She finished 25 seconds after her allotted time, and that’s when three burly men from the Texas Capitol police walked toward her and escorted her from the chamber. The troopers didn’t lay a hand on her, but two of them can be seen on video walking close to her, straight out and away from the podium, before it cuts off. 

This is a new, substitute version of SB12, which has already been passed by the State Senate, and removes any specific mention of drag shows, as KHOU reported. 

“Children are sufficiently protected from being sexualized without this reference to drag shows,” Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen told KHOU. 

This version bans a sexually oriented performance in front of someone under 18 that includes “a male performer exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male” and that is “appealing to the prurient interest in sex.” Violators could face up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Equality Texas labels SB 12 “bad,” along with 140 other bills filed this session. 

“I cannot adequately express to you what 140 bills that attack your community feel like,” Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, told reporters last week.

If SB 12 advances out of the House State Affairs Committee and is later approved by the full House, Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign it into law.

Supporters of the bill testified Wednesday as well. 

“We need to make sure that no child is subjected to sexually explicit performances, and I think this bill is a great start,” Jonathan Covey told committee members.

Ray Purser from the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce told lawmakers that bans on drag shows are bad for businesses.

“They host drag bingos,” Purser told KHOU in an interview following his testimony. “They host Sunday brunches, and it isn’t just LGBT establishments. These are mainstream establishments that are now beginning to see that this is a popular art form.”

Purser also told KHOU while his chamber is “encouraged” to see the language about drag performances removed from the bill, they are still evaluating its possible impact.

“My feeling is that the language is still vague, and there are already laws in place that protect children from these types of sexually oriented performances,” said Purser.

By Alex Nguyen & Sneha Dey | AUSTIN – LGBTQ Texans defending transgender kids’ access to transition-related medical treatments that experts consider lifesaving clashed with a state Republican party that opposes all efforts to validate trans identities Tuesday, as state police forcefully booted from the Capitol people protesting a bill that would ban such care.

It was the most dramatic day yet during a legislative session in which Republicans are pushing a slate of bills that could drastically upend how queer people live. It began with LGBTQ Texans, their families and advocates singing outside the House chamber. Hours later, it ended in altercations with law enforcement and scores of protesters being forced from the building after some chanted during legislative proceedings.

Speaker Dade Phelan initially warned that he’d have the House gallery cleared if disruptions persisted — and quickly followed through. State police eventually handcuffed at least two people.

“Rules matter in the TX House,” Phelan said in a tweet Tuesday evening. “Today’s outbursts in the gallery were a breach of decorum & continued after I warned that such behaviors would not be tolerated. There will always be differing perspectives, but in our chamber, we will debate those differences w/ respect.”

Trans Texans, though, condemned the move.

“It’s a real act of cowardice,” said Landon Richie, a trans man and policy associate with Transgender Education Network of Texas. “They don’t want to face accountability for their actions. They don’t want to face the people that this legislation is going to harm.”

Richie was among hundreds of LGBTQ advocates who traveled to the Capitol to oppose Senate Bill 14, which would block transgender kids from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy — care that medical groups say is critical to a population already facing higher risks of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. Under the bill, trans kids who are already receiving these treatments would have to be “weaned off” and eventually stop taking them. The bill would also ban transition-related surgeries, though they are rarely performed on kids.

SB 14 ended up making little progress Tuesday. Democrats managed to delay the scheduled vote on the bill on a technicality — but Republican leaders vowed to bring the legislation back later this week.

The moment the House took up the bill Tuesday afternoon, Democratic state Rep. Mary González of Clint called a point of order, a legislative maneuver meant to kill the bill on a technicality. The bill analysis cited a study from the “American College of Pediatrics” when the organization is the “American College of Pediatricians.”

As chamber leaders reviewed whether that mistake violated House rules and should prohibit a vote, some LGBTQ Texans and allies in the gallery above chanted “One, two, three, four, trans folks deserve more” and unrolled banners in support of trans kids.

Shortly after his initial warning, Phelan ordered the gallery cleared. State police quickly began moving people out into a hall. Some Department of Public Safety officers were seen physically restraining one person inside the gallery.

Protesters who left the gallery continued to chant in the lobby outside the chamber on the Capitol’s third floor. A DPS officer with a bullhorn then directed the group to leave the lobby because the lawmakers “cannot continue business.” State police began to usher protesters down the stairs and out of the building.

Several troopers physically restrained and handcuffed Adri Pérez, an organizing director with the Texas Freedom Network, in an altercation that lasted about 10 seconds. They initially faced two misdemeanor charges of disrupting a meeting and resisting arrest, as well as an unspecified second-degree felony. But these charges have since been dropped and Pérez was released from custody late Tuesday night, according to the organization. The Travis County district attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Troopers threatened to make additional arrests if LGBTQ advocates did not continue to make their way out of the state Capitol. It was not clear how many people were detained or arrested Tuesday — or what charges they may face. DPS officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier Tuesday, troopers also banned Sofia Sepulveda — a TENT board member and staff member of Equality Texas — from entering the Capitol for a year after she unrolled a massive banner that read “Let trans kids grow up” from the second floor of the building’s rotunda. They also gave her a criminal trespass warning. DPS said she violated a law that prohibits visitors from attaching signs or banners to a part of the Capitol.

“I am a proud Texas resident, a Mexican-American, and a transgender woman, and I deserve to have my voice heard just like any other Texan invested in the policies shaping our lives,” Sepulveda said in a press release.

The swift developments came on a day when LGBTQ advocates and parents of trans kids spent hours at the Capitol, hoping to kill a bill they consider to be one of the most consequential for their community.

Supporters of the bill, wearing red shirts with the words “save Texas kids” also sat in the gallery Tuesday. Republican state Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress, who is shepherding the bill through the House, said in a tweet before the disruption that their presence “strengthens our resolve to get this done today!”

Bill supporters dispute the science and research behind transition-related medical treatments. They also portray doctors who provide this care as opportunists capitalizing on a “social contagion” and misleading parents into approving treatments for kids who may later regret them.

“[Parents] were given a false dichotomy choice between ‘it’s either this or suicide,’” Oliverson said during the committee hearing for House Bill 1686, his companion bill for SB 14. “The science doesn’t support that. It is unconscionable to me that a licensed health care provider would put a parent in that position.”

SB 14 is a legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas, whose platform opposes “all efforts to validate transgender identity.” The Senate has already passed a version of the bill, and a majority of state representatives — all of them Republicans — support the measure.

This is the furthest this proposed ban has advanced in the lower chamber, which has often served as a moderating force on legislation targeting how LGBTQ Texans live. Tuesday’s scheduled debate on the bill put to rest the question of whether Phelan, who presides over the House, would intervene on the issue. In the past few months, some LGBTQ advocates had hoped that the Beaumont Republican would put up roadblocks against SB 14 in the lower chamber. In 2019, as a House committee chair, Phelan told The Texas Tribune that he was “done talking about bashing on the gay community.”

Medical experts, trans youth and their families also say transition-related care — which leading medical associations support — isn’t rushed and involves a long and thoughtful evaluation process.

For trans kids and their parents, the stakes are high. If SB 14 becomes law, some say they would have to travel out of Texas or flee the state altogether to ensure their kids can still access the care they need — and these options are not affordable for or available to all families.

“There are so many layers to what it would look like to have to up and move, aside from the pretty significant financial impact to our family,” Rachel Gonzales, the mother of a trans child, told the Tribune last month. “I have three kids who are deeply rooted in the community and our schools and our neighborhood. … These people around us are our chosen family.”

The gallery of the Texas House is open to the public when the chamber is in session. It was last cleared in 2017 on the last day of the legislative session, when protesters dressed in red T-shirts unfurled banners and chanted in opposition to a bill, which was signed into law later that year, that punishes local government entities and college campuses that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials or enforce immigration laws.

Richie, with TENT, said the House Speaker’s order to clear out the gallery was an authoritarian stunt and breaks basic Democratic principles. Removing protesters from the “people’s House” disenfranchises the very Texans that voted the representatives into office, he said.

Richie has testified and shown up to every legislative session since 2015. When LGBTQ Texans show up in large numbers to testify, he has watched committee chairs cut off testimony with hundreds still waiting to speak. The clearing of the gallery on Tuesday, and the subsequent detainment, was yet another effort to silence trans Texans, Richie said.

A few Democrats expressed mixed feelings about Phelan’s move to clear the gallery. Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, who has served seven terms in office, said the move to clear the gallery was “unusual” but the speaker’s prerogative.

“Guests have to abide by the House rules but it’s always better when people get to observe if they choose,” he said.

Turner said supporters of transgender rights who were asked to clear the gallery should not be discouraged by Tuesday’s actions.

“Their voices matter, they have friends and allies and we’re going to continue fighting,” he said.

“People have the right to come and observe the people’s business but that does not give them the right to disrupt the proceedings,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, a Farmers Branch Democrat who opposed the bill. “I can certainly understand why emotions are deep and strong. However, you can’t disrupt proceedings in the chamber.”

Still, Johnson said only the protesters causing a disruption should have been removed, not the entire gallery.

The Rev. Erin Walter said lawmakers have become comfortable conducting business without Texans bearing witness.

“They may clear out the gallery but they will never be able to erase the existence of trans youth,” Walter said.

LGBTQ advocacy groups also voiced their defiance — as they wait to fight SB 14 on the House floor another day.

“What happened today shows that we are a force to be reckoned with,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas. “They can tear down our banners, they can push our bodies out of the gallery, they can be selective with the rules, but they cannot silence the millions of Texans who support their trans and LGB neighbors.”

Though many, like Rachel and Frank Gonzales, looked deflated late Tuesday. The Dallas parents have been running around to meet with House members and advocate for their daughter Libby since Monday evening. The Gonzales family waited outside the speaker’s office for nearly an hour and a half — but were not given the chance to meet with Phelan.

Now, they are trying to go home and resume their daily life — before the House takes up SB 14 again. State Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the House Calendars Committee, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the legislation will be back on the floor “later this week.”

“It’s a super messed up day,” Rachel Gonzales said.

Zach Despart and James Barragán contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Equality Texas and Texas Freedom Network have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Alex Nguyen, REPORTING FELLOW

[email protected]

@alexnguyen2311

Sneha Dey

GENERAL ASSIGNMENT REPORTER

[email protected]

@snehadey_

The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

**********************

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

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BY Alex Nguyen | AUSTIN – Transgender Texans of all ages could have their access to transition-related medical treatments severely limited — or effectively ended — under a bill the Texas Senate formally approved Wednesday.

Senate Bill 1029 would make physicians and health insurers financially liable for their patients’ lifetime medical, mental health and pharmaceutical costs resulting from complications of gender-affirming medical care even if the providers lack fault or criminal intent. The bill exempts such treatments for kids with “medically verifiable genetic sex disorders.”

According to health groups, the bill would make it highly unlikely for health care providers offering these treatments to be able to get medical liability coverage, leaving them personally on the hook for potential medical, legal and other costs. These financial risks could deter physicians from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapies and gender-affirming surgeries to trans people of all ages in the state.

The Senate voted 19-12 Wednesday to give the bill the final approval, and it now moves to the House. The Senate has also already approved Senate Bill 14, a priority bill that would ban transgender kids from receiving transition-related care, like puberty blockers and hormone therapies. A House committee has also advanced that legislation, and the majority of House members have signed on to support such a ban.

Major medical groups approve of transition-related care and say it lessens higher rates of depression and suicide for trans youth.

RELATED STORY

What transition-related health care is available to transgender kids in Texas? Here’s what you should know.

SB 1029’s prescriptive liabilities, meanwhile, would also likely prompt health insurers to not cover transition-related treatments for trans Texans, even if they are adults.

“This would just simply say that if you’re going to transition someone, then you’re going to have to assume the responsibility to take care of them,” said Republican Sen. Bob Hall of Edgewood, the bill’s author, on Tuesday.

He pointed to several people who had detransitioned and testified during the committee hearing for both SB 1029 and SB 14 about their difficulties accessing care to help them detransition or getting that care covered.

Marvin Bellows, a Texas counselor whose clients include trans and queer youth, has said the most common reason people detransition is that transition-related treatments don’t provide the social relief a patient sought. Anti-trans discrimination, lack of support from loved ones and a number of other factors can cause that, Bellows said.

LGBTQ and health groups say SB 1029 is a stealthy tactic for decimating trans Texans’ access to treatments that have been supported by leading medical associations — without ever directly banning transition-related care for all ages.

“It really is just an attempt to chill health care for all trans people,” said Christopher Hamilton, CEO of nonprofit Texas Health Action.

On one hand, it’s not guaranteed that health care providers offering these treatments would be sued by their patients. On the other hand, the bill’s lack of a statute of limitations and requirement that lifetime costs be covered could make even a low number of claims extremely costly.

RELATED STORY

Transgender Texans and doctors say Republican lawmakers misconstrue what science says about puberty blockers and hormone therapy

SB 1029 could as a result have a much bigger impact than the Republican Party of Texas’ legislative priority and key legislation for this session like SB 14, which have limited their focus to restricting transition-related medical care only for trans youth.

“This isn’t about kids’ safety. This isn’t about medication safety,” Hamilton added. “It’s specifically targeting transgender people because they’re a small group of people who are easily marginalized.”

And because of the state’s size, this could have an outsized impact on trans Americans. In Texas, there are approximately 93,000 trans adults — less than 0.5% of the state’s adult population — according to a 2022 study from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. But the raw figures indicate that Texas has one of the largest trans communities in the U.S. Around 30,000 Texans aged 13 to 17 are trans, which is about 1.5% of this age group’s population.

During the Tuesday Senate debate, several Democrats sought clarifications on SB 1029 and pushed back against it.

“If a patient comes in and requests a procedure and the physician provides the procedure and does so competently, that physician is nevertheless liable to that patient for anything that follows that procedure. That is the intent of the bill?” Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, asked.

“Yes,” Hall said.

“That seems to be contrary to everything in contract law in [the] history of Western civilization, but it’s in the bill,” Johnson responded.

Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, also unsuccessfully attempted to amend the bill on Tuesday. One proposed change would have allowed trans youth already receiving transition-related care to be exempted so they could continue their care. This would have also addressed a major concern caused by SB 14, the priority legislation that would ban these treatments outright for trans kids.

During SB 14’s Senate debate, Republican Sen. Donna Campbell of New Braunfels — the bill’s author — initially pushed for the same exemption, but she later backtracked and cut it before the legislation was voted out of the upper chamber. As it passed through the House Public Health committee, SB 14 was updated to require those who are already receiving such treatments to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner — instead of an abrupt cutoff. This new language, though, has not soothed the worries of medical groups, trans kids and their families.

Menéndez then sought to ban conversion therapy, which aims to change someone’s sexuality and is not supported by science, but failed.

The San Antonio Democrat once again advocated for medical freedom and raised concern that SB 1029 is a civil rights violation as he spoke against the bill and similar efforts on Wednesday.

“These bills embolden hateful individuals to commit violence against [the] LGBTQ+ community, creating a less safe state,” he said. “They push Texans and money out of the state — and not just the transgender or the gay ones that these bills try to erase — but the parents, the business owners, the doctors, the economic opportunities and community members that can afford to take their futures and their economic resources elsewhere. The ones that can’t leave become even more marginalized, more disenfranchised and further pull on available public resources just to stay afloat.”

Hall pushed back against these concerns and said that his bill has “no impact at all on legitimate services.”

“This bill is to protect children who suffer at the hands of greedy hospitals and doctors who are willing to do anything for money, even permanently mutilate young children and then abandon them when they encounter problems,” he said Wednesday.

In addition, Hall’s legislation would prohibit public funding from being used for transition-related care and ban publicly funded health plans from covering such treatments for all trans Texans. The legislation explicitly targets several plans for state and local public employees as well as Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income patients.

In Texas, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program already don’t cover transition-related surgeries and prescription drugs like hormone therapies and puberty blockers. Several other states including Florida have also barred Medicaid patients from using the program to access these treatments.

There are also other GOP bills that seek to ban state funding for transition-related care or expand what medical costs health insurers are responsible for.

For instance, House Bill 3502 by Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano would require health plans that already cover transition-related treatments to also cover “all possible adverse consequences” related to this care as well as “any procedure or treatment necessary” for detransitioning. Critics said this legislation could disincentivize health insurers from covering these treatments for trans Texans, making access to them harder. Leach said during the bill’s committee hearing that he disagreed, adding that the bill doesn’t ban anything. HB 3502 has passed out of committee.

And while SB 1029’s impact could go further than the current GOP’s legislative priority, Campbell and four other Republican senators have signed on as co-authors for Hall’s legislation prior to the floor vote. SB 1029 is also in line with the party’s 2022 platform, which has declared that it “oppose[s] all efforts to validate transgender identity” and wants to ban “taxpayer funding for sex change.”

“This bill abandons all flimsy pretense of safeguarding children,” Jacqueline Murphy, a trans woman, said at a committee hearing on the bill last month, referring to Republicans’ stated motivation for banning such treatments.

Ricardo Martinez, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, echoed this sentiment following the Tuesday vote.

“In a state with the second largest LGBTQ+ population, we are sounding the alarm,” he said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “Make no mistake, the attack on trans people is not about ‘protecting kids,’ it is about making life in Texas unbearable for our trans neighbors.”

William Melhado contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Equality Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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William Melhado

[email protected]

@williammelhado

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Alex Nguyen

[email protected]

@alexnguyen2311

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The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

Quality journalism doesn’t come free

Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn’t cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.

Donation Link Here

LLANO, Tx. -Llano County Texas commissioners, in an emergency special meeting held Thursday at the county courthouse, had scheduled the first item on the agenda was whether to “continue or cease operations” at the library.

This proposed action by commissioners following an order by a federal judge comes two weeks after his ruling that at least 12 books removed from public libraries by county officials, many because of their LGBTQ and racial content, must be returned.

“The library will remain open while we try this in the courts, rather than through the news media,” said Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham, who noted that the county has already spent more than $100,000 on legal costs.

The Texas Tribune reported that only 35 members of the public were allowed inside to share their opinions on whether the public library should close amid an ongoing lawsuit over the county’s removal of banned books. Inside opinions were sharply divided.

“You could tell who was with who — and who wasn’t,” a local resident, Denise Kennedy said, describing the divided opinions inside the tight courtroom.

But outside, it was clear what the majority of the Llano residents wanted.

“It’s not the county’s job to burn the library down,” said James Arno, a 10-year Llano resident, moments after he testified.

Arno and Kennedy were among roughly 100 Central Texans who had shown up at the county building to voice their frustration with local officials and their passion for the library.

A crowd too large to fit in the meeting room gathered around a speaker outside that played an unreliable livestream of the meeting. When the county officials’ decision was announced, they weren’t sure whose side had won.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin, wrote in his ruling: “The library system also is required to reflect these books as available in their catalog and cannot remove any books for any reason while the case is ongoing.”

“Although libraries are afforded great discretion for their selection and acquisition decisions, the First Amendment prohibits the removal of books from libraries based on either viewpoint or content discrimination,” Pitman additionally wrote.

The Texas Tribune has reported that the appeal by the defendants was filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Llano County authorities claimed that the books were removed as part of a “weeding” process in which outdated and irrelevant books are removed from shelves to make room for new ones.

In April 2022, seven library patrons sued the county judge, commissioners court, library board members and library system last year, arguing that their First Amendment rights to access and receive ideas had been infringed when officials removed certain books based on their content.

Pitman wrote in his ruling that the plaintiffs had “clearly met their burden to show that these are content-based restrictions that are unlikely to pass constitutional muster.”

The books that were removed included a title for teens that calls the Ku Klux Klan a terrorist group, Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

According to a statement from county officials, it was the individuals suing the library who were responsible for endangering the community resource the Texas Tribune noted.

“But as we wait for a ruling from the appeals court, a public library simply cannot function if its librarians, county judge, commissioners, and even the volunteers who serve out the goodness of their heart, can be sued every time a library patron disagrees with a librarian’s ‘weeding’ decision,” read a statement from Cunningham released after the commissioner’s decision was made public.

The list of removed books that now must be returned to Llano County libraries includes: 

• “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson.
• “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.
• “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.
• “Spinning” by Tillie Walden.
• “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak.
• “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health” by Robbie H. Harris.
• “My Butt is So Noisy!” “I Broke My Butt!” and “I Need a New Butt!” by Dawn McMillan.
• “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman” and “Harvey the Heart Has Too Many Farts” by Jane Bexley.
• “Shine” by Lauren Myracle.
• “Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale” by Lauren Myracle.
• “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” by Isabel Quintero.
• “Freakboy” by Kristin Elizabeth Clark.

 Additional reporting by The Texas Tribune.