On Wednesday, February 24, offering support to trans youth in Texas effectively became a crime. If that sounds like hyperbole, I urge you to read the full text of the letter that Governor Greg Abbott sent to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services yesterday, in which he directed the agency to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of any instances of “a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries … mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs.”
I’ve lived in Texas for six months now, which doesn’t remotely qualify me as an expert on the state’s politics or its overall outlook on LGBTQ+ individuals (especially since I live in the “blue bubble” of Austin). Still, the time I’ve spent here so far—not just in Austin, but in San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Del Rio, too—has taught me more than I ever could have hoped to learn about Texans themselves, reminding me that the inhabitants of my new state are anything but a monolith.
Yes, anti-trans sentiment thrives in many parts of Texas. But this is also the birthplace of trans leaders like Monica Roberts and Landon Richie and Kai Shappley; a state where organizations like Out Youth and the Transgender Education Network of Texas fight tirelessly for trans rights. Trans children live, learn, play, laugh, and bond here, and we owe them more than a tossed-off “Well, what do you expect? It’s Texas.”
Texas is the second-most diverse state in the country, and so many of my knee-jerk assumptions about how Texans feel on a variety of political issues have been challenged while I’ve lived here. What I’ve been most struck by, though, is the widespread antipathy toward leaders like Abbott, who seem perfectly content to let their constituents freeze to death while attempting to punish parents, teachers, nurses, and other private individuals for daring to support trans children in the state. The scourge of transphobia is a real and present danger—Texas leads the nation in murders of transgender individuals—but that ugly truth doesn’t negate the existence of trans life, joy, and beauty within the state. There’s endless work to do here, but maybe that work starts with recognizing the power and individuality of trans Texans.
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