Trans youth & parents rally as Texas advances discriminatory bill after 4th grueling attempt

Kai Shappley inspiring trans activists at the Texas state legislature on October 6, 2021
Photo: Screenshot/ACLU of Texas

Exhausted transgender youth and their families in Texas again went to the state legislature to speak out against a ban on transgender students in school sports as Republican lawmakers tried to pass it for the fourth time this year.

This time, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) moved the bill from the education committee, where it died earlier this year, to the House Select Committee on Constitutional Rights and Remedies, where it passed yesterday.

Related: 4th grader who shamed Texas Republicans for attacking her rights is now getting death threats

H.B. 25 would ban students from playing on a sports team that doesn’t correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate. That’s what’s already happening in Texas, but this bill would require parents to show a birth certificate issued at birth, just in case a minor had the gender marker on their birth certificate corrected.

One Democratic lawmaker noted that there are only 80 minors in the entire state who did so from 2018 to 2019, but that didn’t stop Republicans from attacking transgender youth.

“We all know men and women are built different, and the results prove the unfairness of forcing our daughters and granddaughters to compete against biological males. To say otherwise doesn’t just reject biology, it denies girls their dignity, self-confidence, and humanity,” state Rep. Valoree Swanson (R) said.

Swanson also said that there are boys in the state who transition just to win at girls sports. When asked when that has ever happened, she could not name an example.

The House Select Committee on Constitutional Rights and Remedies heard testimony all day, most from opponents of H.B. 25, including transgender youth and their families.

Amber Briggle, a mother of a transgender son who has already been testifying before the state legislature this year as the state considered multiple anti-transgender laws, told the committee about the…

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