Call it what you want to make it sound harmless, but a government, national, state, or local, making lists of members of certain groups of people is rather reminiscent of historical examples of genocide whose initial actions were justified by the fear instilled in the minds of the public. Clearly, those who support the collecting of names would be the ones who object most strenuously to the existence of ANTIFA because it was this movement that ended the Holocaust.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to compile a list of anyone who had changed their gender marker on their driver’s licenses and other government documents over the last two years. Presently, Texas courts seal or restrict access to gender changes for privacy reasons and to help Trans people avoid harassment and violence, so going to the DMV was convenient and less complicated.
The list includes 16,466 individuals who had requested such a change between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022, but the DPS couldn’t provide a full and accurate list without doing additional research that would call for a manual review of all supporting document.
The AG’s request for the list came a month after the state supreme court ruled that he couldn’t investigate families for “child abuse” for providing gender-affirming healthcare to their Trans children and skipped the normal channels to get such information, going directly to the driver licenses which obviously would only supply a partial list as some people do not get drivers’ licenses.
In spite of Department of Public Safety emails that repeatedly mention the request as having come from Paxton’s office, his office said no such records existed and Assistant Attorney General June Harden questioned why the Office of the Attorney General would have gathered this information.
One simple explanation is that both the AG and the governor of Texas have declared war on the state’s Transgender population and their families.
Last spring Governor Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate any parents who allow their trans children to access gender-affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors as cases of child because Attorney General pronounced gender-affirming health care as a form of child abuse.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association consider gender-affirming medical care as necessary in many cases, especially as it reduces mental anguish and suicide risk among Trans youth.
In reaction to this request, several DFPS employees quit while some state attorneys refused to enforce it, and the Texas Supreme Court ruled that neither Abbott nor Paxton had the authority to issue the order.
Meanwhile, because several families with trans children also filed a lawsuit against Abbott, the presiding district judge in the lawsuit issued a temporary restraining order to stop the assembling of a List while the court considers the order’s legality.
DFPS employees were told to investigate any trans-related cases, whether or not there was a reason to, just the existence of a Trans child was enough, and they were not to discuss these cases in emails, text messages, or any other form of writing since that could provide a record of the investigation and the media might get wind of it.
The DPS was to leave no paper trail which could reveal the persecution of trans-supportive families in order to prevent other curious government agencies, the press, and even the families being investigated from finding out and then examining documents and the department’s work.
Collecting names secretly. How could that be a bad thing?
To get the list compiled and to by-pass the court decision the governor issued his order without following the requirements for creating new departmental rules, as required in the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, 16 DFPS.
To prove there is a Transgender threat, the state of Texas is willing to ignore laws, courts, and established procedures to prove someone they do not like is doing imagined illegal things.
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