AUSTIN — Republicans in the Legislature filed more than 80 bills that would affect LGBTQ Texans, including many focused on public schools that would impact students, teachers and staff.
Sex education and gender identity are a particular focus.
Republican lawmakers filed a range of bills to ban teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, limit the ability of teachers and students to discuss sex and gender outside the classroom, outlaw support for gender transitions and protect employees who refer to transgender students by their biological sex.
With so many other legislative priorities to tackle in the remaining 10 weeks of session, it’s likely only a few of these proposals will receive significant consideration inside the Capitol. But the vast number of bills filed signals Republicans intend to do more on LGBTQ issues after banning gender-affirming care for minors and barring transgender people from competing in college athletics based on their gender identity instead of their biological sex in 2023.
Advocates see parental rights bills as common-sense legislation that’s most likely to pass.
Many of the proposed policies align with the Republican Party of Texas platform and reflect the goals of conservative grassroots activists.
“Sexual orientation and gender identity policies, they’re not about allowing people to learn and live as they choose,” said Jonathan Covey, policy director of Texas Values, a Christian public policy advocacy group. “They’re used in a coercive way to force those people who don’t agree with them to go along with a radical ideology, and schools are actually a major front in this campaign.”
Johnathan Gooch, a spokesman for the LGBTQ advocacy organization Equality Texas, said he’s seeing “more and more extreme” bills filed each session, likening the influx to President Donald Trump’s flood-the-zone strategy of governance.
“The hope is that it will overwhelm people, and people will just surrender and throw their hands up in the air,” Gooch said.
One Republican House bill proposes a ban on human sexuality instruction from prekindergarten through eighth grade. Others would ban such instruction from pre-K through 12th grade.
School trustees would have to adopt a written communication policy setting “appropriate boundaries” between teachers and students, including provisions “to prevent improper communication” outside of instruction in a human sexuality course under some proposals.
Meanwhile, under another bill, Texas sex education could not mirror standards set by the Future of Sex Education Initiative. The group’s standards note that effective sex education requires accurate information about a broad range of topics, including gender identity and expression and sexual identity and orientation.
Brady Gray, president of the Texas Family Project, said sex education should be left to families.
“You’re exposing children that may or may not be ready for that kind of topic at an incorrect age,” Gray said of Texas schools. “You’re robbing parents of their right to be able to teach their kids about these things, and you’re introducing, most often, inappropriate content and inappropriate ideas to a group of students who are too young to be receiving that.”
Gray said discussions about sex and gender have evolved from education to “ideological nonsense” at a time when many students are struggling with core issues like reading and math.
“We should get back to teaching kids facts,” he said. “We have sacrificed our children and their education to ideological concepts and teaching these things that don’t matter.”
From pronoun use to transitioning
Other bills would require parental consent before a student could be taught about human sexuality. A pair of identical bills would require parental consent for students to join any club “that promotes themes of sexuality, gender, or gender identity.” And a separate bill would require parental consent for behavioral or mental health services or treatment, including information on human sexuality and mental health.
Gooch said bills limiting mental health services could be detrimental.
“That could be an obstacle to supporting a young person who is not getting the support they need at home,” he said. “We know that young queer people face disproportionate rates of homelessness because when they come out or if they are forced out at a young age, their parents may kick them to the street, and that’s extremely dangerous.”
House Bill 1106 by Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, would amend the Family Code to specify that it cannot be considered abusive if a parent or guardian refused to affirm a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity or address a child by preferred pronouns.
Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, proposed two bills banning school employees from assisting with a student’s social transitioning, which could include using a new name, different pronouns and changes to hairstyle and clothing to reflect gender identity.
Schatzline’s office did not make him available to discuss his bills, but in a recent interview with TMZ, he cited a “mental health crisis” among Texas students.
“We live in a day and age where common sense is not so common anymore,” Schatzline said. “We’re watching as biological men are invading women’s safe spaces.”
Schatzline also proposes barring school employees from providing information about transitioning, and violations of his House Bill 1655 could result in lost state funding for the school district.
House Bill 3616 would go further, extending the transition assistance ban to charter school employees and government workers while requiring school employees who become aware a minor is socially transitioning to notify a parent.
A third Schatzline proposal would specifically bar teachers from supporting gender transition, including by educating students about “transgender lifestyles,” providing information about LGBTQ organizations and discussing gender-affirming care, “gender fluidity” and “the existence of more than two genders.”
“Gender dysphoria is absolutely a mental illness,” Schatzline told TMZ. “Do we believe that there are only two genders or are we going to continue to perpetuate the lie that you can change your gender?”
“Normalizing this,” he added, “is not helping individuals.”
According to the American Psychological Association, legislative attempts to obstruct treatment of gender dysphoria — the distress felt when someone’s sex does not match their gender identity — by blocking access to psychological and medical interventions puts transgender people “at risk of depression, anxiety and other negative mental health outcomes.”
More than 4 in 10 LGBTQ youth in Texas have seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to the results of a Trevor Project survey released this month. A majority reported experiencing symptoms of depression, and nearly two-thirds reported experiencing anxiety.
Cameron Samuels, executive director of the youth advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, said these bills are harmful.
“These bills are not representative of Texas at large,” Samuels said, “nor do they solve real issues Texans face.”
Another Schatzline proposal would require immediate parental notification concerning acts of self-harm, “including words or behavior expressing gender dysphoria or other distress relating to the child’s biological sex.” School district employees who fail to comply could be suspended without pay or fired.
Another pair of identical bills would protect school district employees from discipline for addressing a student or colleague “in terms consistent with” their biological sex. A third proposal would expand protections for public school and higher education employees and students, as well as government employees who misgender a coworker or member of the general public.
Landon Richie, a policy associate at the Transgender Education Network of Texas, testified at a recent Senate State Affairs Committee hearing that allowing people to refer to others by their biological sex instead of their gender identity promotes bullying.
“There have been bills filed this session to punish teachers and school district staff who do respect their students and their peers,” he said. “How is encouraging teachers and staff to bully their coworkers and their students while punishing teachers and staff who affirm their coworkers and their students a productive use of anyone’s time?”
At the same hearing, Lathan Watts, vice president of public affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom, said teachers shouldn’t be forced to compromise on their religious beliefs on gender identity and use of pronouns.
“We must protect teachers to ensure that they are never forced to abandon their beliefs and lie about the meaning of female and male just to keep a job,” Watts said.
Rep. Steve Toth, R-Conroe, filed three bills limiting or banning transgender-friendly bathrooms. HB 1015 would require school districts and charter schools to designate multiple-occupancy bathrooms and changing facilities based on students’ biological sex. The bill would authorize accommodations such as providing a transgender student access to a single-occupancy bathroom and changing facility.
Districts that do not comply could be liable for a $100,000 civil penalty under HB 1014.
A similar bill would require public schools to ensure private changing spaces are designated for students of the same sex and that only individuals of that sex may enter.
Gooch, from Equality Texas, said lawmakers have been “laser-focused on a very small segment of the population” without considering all the potential effects.
Roughly one-fourth of the state’s 120,000-person transgender population is between age 13 and 17, according to the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute.
“For whatever reason they’ve decided that they’re going to win some sort of points by targeting trans people, but every time they do that, there are unintended consequences for non-trans people,” he said. “Bathroom bans impact all women by making them vulnerable to various inspections, having to prove their gender in some way or expose their ID with their home address to someone.”
A bill that would prevent biological boys from playing in girls sports would require physicians who conduct physicals to refer a student for genetic testing if they suspect “a student has chromosomal characteristics that are different from the biological sex.”
Toth’s office declined to make him available for an interview on his bills. But in the TMZ interview alongside Schatzline, Toth said, “We only have compassion and love” for transgender people.
“Treating a mental illness does not include cutting off body parts, and we want to do everything we can to say we love you, we’re going to walk with you, but we’re not going to aid you,” Toth said. “We’re not going to help you.”
Higher education restrictions
Republicans have proposed additional sports and teaching requirements and restrictions in colleges and universities.
A proposal from Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston would bar out-of-state college teams from competing against Texas teams unless they certify their team only includes athletes competing based on their biological sex.
Rep. Joanne Shofner, R-Nacogdoches, introduced a ban on instruction that promotes the use of a pronoun inconsistent with a person’s biological sex.
Toth’s HB 4311 would require colleges that offer a mental health professional degree program to make students complete a course on therapeutic practices to assist those who have considered or undergone social or medical transitions in “alleviating distress” and “fostering reconciliation with the reality of biological sex.”
Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, wants to ban college programs and courses in LGBTQ studies. Harrison’s HB 2339 says institutions risk losing state funding unless they “comply with the biological reality that there are only two sexes, male and female, and these sexes are not changeable.”
Harrison said his bill is about the role of government, not a social issue.
“The bar should be really high for the state of Texas to take money from one Texan and spend it on something,” he said. “If you want to study LGBTQ studies, fine. But do it with your own money, not on the backs of my constituents.”
