Texas AG announces plan to legally depose Dallas school district officials over trans athletes

*This is being reported by the Dallas Voice.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced in a press release today (Monday, March 31) that his office has filed a legal petition to “conduct depositions on key Dallas Independent School District officials as part of an ongoing investigation to ensure that the district is not violating Texas law by permitting biological males to participate in girls’ sports.”

In February, Paxton demanded that Dallas ISD turn over “extensive records … related to alarming evidence that the District had implemented an unwritten policy of encouraging students to alter their birth certificates to play sports in violation of the Texas law prohibiting a student from competing in interscholastic athletic competitions designated for the opposite biological sex.”

“Biological sex,” by the way, is the catchphrase that certain political elements living on the extreme right of the political spectrum to give a scientific-sounding cover for their basic transphobia. As Psychology Today notes: “What is biological sex? It seems like a question with an obvious answer: male and female, of course. You might point to internal or external sex organs, or sex chromosomes (XX for females, XY for males), or genes (such as SRY, the maestro responsible for kicking off male development).

“These answers are only part of the story — and they work well enough for most humans. But for all humans? Not quite. And when it comes to the rest of the biological world, those explanations crumble like sandcastles under the tide of nature’s diversity.”

But back to Paxton’s attack of the day: The AG’s press release says the list of individuals he intends to depose includes Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde, LGBT Youth Program Coordinator Mahoganie Gaston and the members of the Board of Trustees.

Paxton claims that “Gaston has been filmed telling a parent that a male student would be allowed to participate in girls’ sports if the parent changed the birth certificate of their son to ‘female,’” that the district “find[s] the loopholes in everything” and that she is “willing to go to jail for defying Texas law.”

A statement attributed to Paxton in the press release declares, “School districts must follow the law, keep our children safe and end these insane ‘gender theory’ policies that ignore reality and encourage illegal actions. ISD officials who have participated in this madness will be held accountable.

“The systematic effort by Dallas ISD officials to circumvent Texas law will be exposed and stopped.”

Dallas Voice has reached out to Dallas ISD officials for comment.

(P.S. This press release came from the AG’s office on the same day Paxton sent a press release explaining how his office is going to make certain local district attorneys report to him so he can make sure they are doing things his way. We’re still waiting on a comment from Dallas District Attorney John Creuzot’s office for some sort of official response, but a quick Google search indicates that Ken Paxton has no supervisory authority of local DAs who, by the way, are themselves public officials elected by the public, same as Paxton.)

Texas eliminates the option for transgender individuals to update the gender marker on their IDs

This blog originally appeared at LGBTQ NATION.

Individuals attempting to change their gender will be entered into a database accessible by state Republicans.

According to KUT, transgender Texans can no longer update the gender marker on their state IDs, even if they have a court order or an amended birth certificate. The only exception is if the change is proven to be a clerical error. However, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) stated that this rule is no longer in effect, and the relevant information was quietly removed from their website yesterday. A DPS spokesperson attributed the change to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).

“The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has recently expressed concerns about the validity of court orders directing state agencies, including the DPS, to change the sex of individuals in government records like driver licenses and birth certificates,” the agency informed KUT.

“Neither DPS nor other government agencies are involved in the legal proceedings that result in these court orders, and the absence of legislative authority and evidentiary standards for courts to issue such orders has necessitated a thorough legal review by DPS and the OAG. Therefore, as of Aug. 20, 2024, DPS has stopped accepting these court orders as valid for changing sex identification in department records, including driver licenses,” the agency stated.

Ian Pittman, an attorney assisting trans Texans, told The Texas Tribune that this policy shift raises significant privacy concerns for transgender individuals, as they will now be forced to carry IDs that don’t reflect their gender. This mismatch can result in discrimination, harassment, violence, and barriers to accessing services that require identification.

The DPS now officially documents and scans any birth certificate changes or court orders related to gender markers but does not use them to process updates. “This policy effectively puts people on a list that could interfere with their health care,” Pittman said, urging trans Texans not to submit court orders to the DPS.

The change comes amid broader efforts in states like Florida and Kansas to block transgender individuals from altering ID markers, alongside numerous anti-LGBTQ actions by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott (R). Two years ago, Paxton directed DPS employees to create a list of individuals who had requested gender marker changes.

“Texans will now be subject to involuntary surveillance simply for trying to update a government document,” said Brad Pritchett, interim CEO of Equality Texas. “There is no clear rationale for why DPS would need this information, nor a valid reason to deny gender marker updates on driver’s licenses.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issues search warrants in a significant Democratic county as part of an election fraud investigation

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that Audrey Louis’s district does not encompass Bexar County.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) office carried out search warrants in one of the state’s largest urban counties, a major Democratic stronghold, alleging incidents of vote tampering.

On Tuesday, the Texas Attorney General’s office conducted searches in Bexar County, the fourth most populous county in the state and home to San Antonio.

The searches followed a two-year investigation, with the office stating that “secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic.”

This action is part of a broader effort by Paxton to pursue election fraud cases, an initiative that spent $2.3 million in 2023 to prosecute just four cases, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes,” Paxton said in a statement.

The case was referred by state District Attorney Audrey Louis, a conservative Republican whose district borders Bexar County.

Louis made the referral in 2022, following a 2021 ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), which determined that Paxton could not independently investigate election crimes. The ruling required him to work with local district attorneys in such cases, a decision that led Paxton to encourage his supporters to inundate the court with calls.

“The CCA’s shameful decision means local DAs with radical liberal views have the sole power to prosecute election fraud in Texas — which they will never do,” Paxton wrote at the time.

Audrey Louis, a conservative Republican, unseated Democratic incumbent René Peña, her former boss, in 2016. Peña had fired her just hours after she announced her candidacy.

While Louis’s jurisdiction includes the less populous Frio and Atascosa counties, Bexar County is not part of her district.

The attorney general’s office has declined to provide further details on the ongoing investigation, which unfolds amid unexpectedly close national races for both president and Congress in Texas, following Paxton’s previous efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

While polling shows former President Trump, a Paxton ally and the Republican presidential nominee, maintaining a lead in Texas, Democrats are closing the gap. A recent ActiVote poll showed Vice President Harris trailing by 6.6 points — a smaller margin compared to Trump’s 2020 victory over Joe Biden.

Similarly, in the Senate race between Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R), The Hill/Decision Desk HQ tracker shows a similar gap, though polling from two Texas universities in July found the race to be as close as 3 points.

In 2020, Biden won Bexar County, home to 2 million voters, by an 18-point margin, while Trump dominated rural Atascosa and Frio counties — the latter seeing a 21-point shift toward Republicans, reflecting a broader trend of some Texas Latino voters moving toward the GOP.

Paxton played a key role in Republican efforts to overturn Biden’s victory, spending years advancing false claims that the election was stolen. In December 2020, he filed a lawsuit against four battleground states that Biden had won, arguing that their “failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election.”

The conservative-majority Supreme Court dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit just three days after it was filed. Additionally, the Texas State Bar has moved to discipline Paxton, with a Bar disciplinary committee labeling the lawsuit “dishonest.”

Despite Paxton’s objections, a state appellate court ruled in April that the Texas Bar could discipline him for his lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results. In response, Paxton appealed the decision in June to the state Supreme Court, accusing the appellate court of engaging in “politically motivated lawfare” against him.

In his filing, Paxton urged the state’s high court “to intervene to prevent the State Bar’s continued abuse of the legal system.”

Paxton files lawsuit against Biden administration over transgender worker protections

This blog originally appeared at The Hill.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has once again filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, this time targeting federal protections for transgender employees in the workplace.

The lawsuit, submitted Thursday in federal court, is directed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Justice Department (DOJ). It challenges the legality of agency guidelines that define workplace harassment under federal law, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent their enforcement.

The EEOC guidelines, though not legally binding, assert that denying employees accommodations based on their gender identity—such as misgendering transgender workers or denying them access to gender-appropriate restrooms—constitutes unlawful workplace harassment.

In Thursday’s lawsuit, Paxton, alongside the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, claimed the opposite. “The Biden-Harris Administration is once again attempting to rewrite federal law through undemocratic and illegal agency action,” Paxton stated. “This time, they are unlawfully weaponizing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to force private businesses and States to adopt ‘transgender’ mandates—Texas is suing to stop them.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Texas’s Amarillo Division, where U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, presides over most cases. Last month, Kacsmaryk dismissed Paxton’s request to block an earlier version of the EEOC guidance, stating that a new complaint was required.

The EEOC declined to comment, referring inquiries to the DOJ, which did not immediately respond. Paxton, a vocal critic of progressive LGBTQ protections, has filed numerous lawsuits against the Biden administration since 2021, with most being directed to Kacsmaryk, according to the Texas Tribune.

Read more.

Ken Paxton Among AGs Suing USDA Over LGBTQ School Meal Directive – NBC 5 Dallas

This blog originally appeared at nbcdfw.

A lawsuit was launched on Tuesday against President Joe Biden’s administration over a Department of Agriculture school food program that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity by more than 20 Republican attorneys general, including Texas’ Ken Paxton.

In the lawsuit, Herbert Slatery, the attorney general of Tennessee, asserts that the federal government is trying to compel states and educational institutions to adhere to anti-discrimination standards that “misconstrue the law.”

Read full article – https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/ken-paxton-among-ags-suing-usda-over-lgbtq-school-meal-directive/3032288/


If you’re ready to look for a better state or county for you and your family (or family of choice), reach out to us at www.FleeRedStates.com

Texas AG says he’d defend sodomy law if Supreme Court revisits ruling – Washington Post

This blog originally appeared at The Washington Post

When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) seemed to agree with Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion that other precedents that might be deemed “demonstrably erroneous,” such as those affecting the LGBTQ community, could be reviewed by the court.

Thomas referred to Lawrence v. Texas as one of the cases that forbade states from outlawing intimate same-sex relationships. The historic 2003 decision invalidated a 1973 Texas law that made sodomy a crime. However, once Roe was overruled, Paxton declared he would support the state’s abolished sodomy ban if the Supreme Court followed Thomas’s advice and ultimately decided to reconsider Lawrence.

Read Full Article – https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/29/texas-sodomy-supreme-court-lawrence-paxton-lgbtq/


If you’re ready to look for a better state or county for you and your family (or family of choice), reach out to us at www.FleeRedStates.com

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