As someone who is listed in at least one state governmental database in the past as a Female teaching at a private school for troubled youth, made in error, this story really bothered me. Indicted AG Ken Paxton aimed at gathering Texan transgender data which at first was just a number of over 16K before next going after personal information.
The link to this tweet where the article is gifted is here.
Paxton’s office deceitfully attempted to throw off WaPo’s request for documents to confirm what they already had in hand, stating to the effect this hadn’t happened. It had. WaPo called out the lie and supported that by showing some of the docs they were requesting of the state.
One good friend and her wife have already left Texas to Las Vegas over its unfriendly attitude towards the LGBQT community. I fear more will. We talk every now and then with her encouraging me and my biracial family to pull up the stakes, move elsewhere where it is significantly less intolerant, bigoted and racist. That is hard, only because that would mean uprooting kids from schools and finding a place where the air is breathable all year round, the reason I left Utah. We’d also have a hard time buying a 4K square foot home within a similar price range that we have in Texas, yet my wife and I are already talking about just such a possibility for down the road.
Stories like this Paxton one are likely effective in pushing out more, if not all of the so-called undesirables the extremist wing within the Republican Party in both Texas and Florida hates and seeks to demonize. With culture wars against teachers, medical professionals, LGBTQ, and those with disabilities the mainstream right along with the more vocal radical right is resembling a caustic society just prior to any past that normalized genocide and mass deaths, literally death groomers
This hatred of anyone who is not white & christian as well as the militarized racism are the exact reason I left Texas. I’m tired of seeing the confederate traitorous flag next to AK-47s. Most Americans want to lower the temperature of contention in this country, but not Texas. So many conversion therapy “sermons” that I walked out of. If God is love & we’re created in His image, then no one has any right to change His creation. And whatever happened to “judge not lest ye be judged“????
I’m sorry, Stephen but fuck Texas forever. You won’t drag me back there in a body bag.