Editor’s Note: This story discusses transphobia. For LGBTQIA+ youth in need of mental health support, call the Trevor Project’s 24/7 toll-free support line at 866-488-7386. Additional resources can be found at Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 and the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which can be reached by calling or texting 988.
Even though Houston Rep. Shawn Thierry is about to get booted from her Texas House seat, she’s still hard at work — hating on transgender kids.
Thierry, a Democrat who was primaried earlier this year after supporting various anti-trans bills, is now the new director of political strategy for — you guessed it — an anti-trans policy group.
The organization, Genspect, opposes gender-affirming care for children and young people experiencing gender dysphoria. It was started in 2021 by Irish psychotherapist Stella O’Malley and the Texas Tribune reports that it (unsurprisingly) has been accused by medical experts of relying on junk science.
The Daily Dot reported that, in leaked chats, the group’s vice director, Alasdair Gunn, said that their focus on youth transition was merely political strategy: They actually don’t want anyone to be able to transition. “None of us would ever recommend transition for anyone,” Gunn said in the leaked chats. “The key point here is: eyes on the prize! We have to stop child transitions. On those over 25 we say little, because it’s not in YOUR interests to mention this.”
The group found an ideological bedfellow in Thierry, who last year supported, among other Republican-led legislation, Senate Bill 14, which banned gender-transition care for children.
Amid the Democratic backlash, Thierry lost her primary this year to union organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons. But don’t worry! Thierry is spending her lame-duck months doing the important work of retweeting (sorry, re-Xing?) anti-trans posts from Elon Musk and the truly execrable Libs of Tiktok.
Sounds like she’s already prepping for her new gig!
Meanwhile, Texas at large continues to be a hellscape for trans people of all ages.
Texas A&M suspended all services for gender transitioning care on August 1 — a service it has been providing since 2012 — ending access to medical professionals and blood tests, along with forcing the discontinuation of the physical and mental changes that hormone replacement therapy had provided for some students, the Texas Tribune reported last week.
“Losing the care means that you have to look at yourself and see someone that you’re not anytime you look in a mirror,” one student told a reporter. “It’s hard to go back to after having access to just being yourself.”
And though the university has said it was the growing student population, and a strain on the school’s health center, transgender and queer students pushed back on that explanation, citing the state’s hostile environment against queer Texans, telling the Tribune: “It just seems that they don’t take the same level of care to address concerns of the queer community as they would other communities.”
And they have a point. Under a recent policy change headed up by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texans won’t be able to change the sex listed on their driver’s licenses. KUT confirmed the change with the Texas Department of Public Safety and said that going forward, Texans can’t change the sex on their licenses unless it’s fixing a clerical error — even by court order.
See, very reasonably, you could do so until now by bringing an original certified court order or an amended birth certificate verifying the change, according to an archived version of the Department of Public Safety license website that KUT dug up.
“The Department of Public Safety has a responsibility, as stated in its own name, to keep all Texans safe,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said in a statement panning Paxton’s actions. “This policy does the opposite. Not having accurate driver’s licenses jeopardizes trans people’s health and safety — by potentially outing us and exposing us to discrimination, harassment, and violence.”
But hey, why serve your constituents when you could make their lives — and their children’s lives — harder? This is Texas, baby! (It’s absurd.)
