LGBTQ youth, advocates and elected officials seek protections as new Texas transgender bill signed

WASHINGTON — As Texas and other states pass new limits on transgender students in schools that advocates say are harmful, Texas Democrats say federal legislation could be warranted to help protect them.

With Gov. Greg Abbott signing a bill into law Monday that restricts transgender student athletes from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity, Texas now joins at least five other states that have passed similar measures in recent months, according to the Associated Press.

“Without having some kind of federal intervention that’s going to protect the LGBTQ community, but especially trans kids… I just foresee that our rights and trans kids are going to continue being attacked,” state Rep. Jessica González of Dallas said Monday.

On Friday, senior White House staff held a roundtable with LGBTQ youth, families, advocates and elected officials to discuss how recent legislation has impacted Texas children.

“In last Friday’s meeting, it was so important that the families and advocates actually felt like they were heard,” Rebecca Marques, Texas State Director of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “For the last 10 months, we’ve all been speaking repeatedly to the Texas Legislature – but it’s clear that what we were saying about discrimination and about the harms caused by targeting trans children… all those messages clearly were ignored.”

The White House has already denounced the transgender sports restrictions bill, which the Texas Legislature passed earlier this month, as “hateful.”

Under the new law, students in Texas will only be permitted to compete on sports teams that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificate that was assigned at or near the time of birth. The law goes into effect in January of next year.

Julie Rodriguez, Deputy Assistant to the President and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and senior staff held the roundtable “to hear firsthand how recent anti-transgender legislation has harmed the safety, wellbeing, and freedom of countless children in Texas,” the White House said.

González, who tuned into the meeting with Reps. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch and Ann Johnson of Houston, said “it was more of a listening session” for the White House staff, who invited them to attend.

“It was more so hearing our concerns… stressing that this is an issue that is important for the administration and just trying to find out how they can be supportive,” González said. “Of course, one of those is passing the Equality Act.”

The Equality Act, which the U.S. House passed in February, would prohibit “discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system.”

“I was proud to vote for the Equality Act and will never stop working to make Texas a place where everyone can pursue their version of the American Dream,” Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, said in a statement. “Now the Senate must pass this legislation to ensure that no matter where you live, you can be who you are and love who you love without fear of retaliation.”

The Legislature saw multiple bills this year that targeted transgender children, including one that would revoke the license of physicians and others who provide or prescribe gender-affirming care to Texans under the age of 18.

Though lawmakers failed to pass that bill earlier this year, Abbott has asked a state agency to determine whether it’s child abuse to allow transgender children to have certain gender-confirmation surgeries.

“In 2021, Texas was once again the frontline of the national effort to win far-right Republican primary voters by passing unnecessary and discriminatory legislation that targets vulnerable Texans,” Marques said. “These bills are driven by anti-LGBTQ animus, not facts, and there is no end in sight for these efforts.”

According to The 19th, as of Sept. 13 Texas had introduced the most bills targeting transgender youth in the country, triple the number of any other state.

Abbott prodded lawmakers all year for the transgender sports restrictions bill, commending them for having finally “passed legislation to protect the integrity of Texas high school sports” when it succeeded.