The 88th Texas Legislature convened recently with Republicans making clear they plan to spend yet another session targeting the state’s LGBTQ community at the expense of work to improve the lives of as many Texans as possible. Republican members of the House and Senate have introduced at least three dozen bills hostile to LGBTQ Texans, including several that would criminalize a small number of parents who allow their children to receive gender-affirming care. Other GOP bills would crack down on places of business that host drag performances and prohibit teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation with students before eighth grade, despite no substantive evidence that Texas teachers are doing so. The Texas GOP has long declared itself the party of less regulation and intrusion into the personal lives of Texans. But you wouldn’t know it by its fixation with targeting transgender children and their families.
LGBTQ ISSUES DON’T RANK AMONG TEXANS’ TOP CONCERNS
These bills mark the fourth consecutive legislative session in which Republicans have pushed a divisive anti-LGBTQ agenda that squeezes oxygen from important issues while embarrassing Texas on the national stage. The GOP’s latest attempt to pull Texas backward on gay and transgender rights comes at a time when polls show the issues don’t rank among Texans’ top 10 concerns. State lawmakers from both parties should heed the people’s concerns and reject anti-LGBTQ initiatives, focusing instead during their limited time in the biennial legislature on objectives that matter most to Texans: Economic opportunities, reproductive rights, ensuring a reliable electrical grid, gun reforms, climate change and more.
The state Republican Party affirmed it its archaic and hostile view of LGBTQ Texans at its convention last summer, re-adopting platform language declaring homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” despite overwhelming evidence that it is not a choice at all. We realize that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a culture warrior who routinely treats the LGBTQ community like a political piñata, is unlikely to back off of his anti-LGBTQ agenda in the Senate. But we hope Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who in the past has lamented the legislature’s attempts to discriminate against LGBTQ Texans, will lead the lower chamber toward less divisive, more productive initiatives.
Why waste time pursuing ideas that don’t have widespread support? During the last session, Texas Republicans wasted precious days, weeks and months pursuing an anti-LGBTQ agenda that fizzled almost entirely. Of 76 bills filed in the 87th Legislature aimed at LGBTQ restrictions, just 20 received committee votes, and only one — a measure restricting transgender student athletes’ participation in school sports — was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, according to Equality Texas, a pro-LGBTQ advocacy group.
GOP BILLS WOULD INTRUDE ON PARENTAL DECISIONS, CHILD HEALTH CARE
Most frightening for a small group of Texas parents this session are GOP bills that would subject them to child abuse charges if they obtain gender-affirming care for their children. The bills follow Abbott’s and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s appalling decision last year to order state child welfare officials to investigate parents who opt for such care for their children. Gary Floyd, president of the Texas Medical Association, has urged Texas lawmakers to avoid legislation that interferes with decisions about medical care — including gender-affirming care — between doctors and patients and their families.
Floyd told our editorial board the issue gets an inordinate amount of attention considering fewer than 50 doctors in Texas have reported providing care for children struggling with gender dysphoria. Such care typically begins with professional counseling and simple anti-anxiety medications. In rare cases, a child’s doctor will prescribe hormone blockers to help delay unwanted physical changes that are at odds with a child’s preferred gender identity. Floyd said this hormonal interruption is reversible, and the American Medical Association has endorsed it as “medically-necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.” Gender reassignment surgeries, commonly referred to as sex change operations, are not legal in Texas.
The GOP’s continued effort to vilify LGBTQ Texans is divisive and dangerous. It has no place in the legislative arena. Texas faces serious challenges related to education, health care, gun violence, poverty and other important issues. State lawmakers should focus on what matters in the 88th Texas Legislature and leave the bigotry behind.
Austin American-Statesman
