Guess who got their name and gender marker change done just in time for that to happen.
They’re is literally making a list of us! I’m fucking scared. These kinds of lists don’t get compiled for no reason, especially when they’ve spent the better part of a decade targeting us and it has only ramped up and gotten more severe.
Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up in a Jewish family surrounded by Holocaust survivors, but when I hear that a state is putting together lists of their a group of people they’re openly demonized, I start to get that “run the fuck away” senses going.
Here’s the full article (not behind a paywall):
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/14/ken-paxton-transgender-texas-data/
I’m usually the person saying “This is not a reason to panic, do what you need to avoid anxiety keeping you from doing your day to day life stuff” when it comes to news about the state government of Texas and trans people. While it’s been bad, it’s been very public government actions that were taken to court and decisions that have often been appealed and struck down. This is different and it seems like an obvious escalation. For the first time I’m like, “OK, we need to be putting together networks to alert each other to an emergency and a plan for leaving the state on no notice.”
No, we shouldn’t have to consider leaving our homes. Yes, cis people should be taking this news VERY SERIOUSLY and work harder to get the specific people doing this out of office and away from state power. Because right now they have too much power, billions of dollars backing them, and they increasingly don’t seem to give a shit about the legality nor the consequences of what they’re doing. They could do so much damage before enough people who could stop them realized what was happening.
Be safe, make plans that hopefully none of us will ever need.
[Image Description: first image: headline by The Washington Post that says “Texas attorney general’s office sought state data on transgender Texans”. Above the headline is a photo of someone with purple shoulder-length hair wearing a burgundy tank top and dark tan skirt, standing outside on a porch by a Texas flag where the stripes have been replaced by the rainbow pride stripes. Second image: Beneath the headline it says “Houston–Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety in June received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office: to compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas drivers licence and other department records during the past two years. [paragraph] ‘Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last twenty-four months, broken down by month,’ the chief of the DPS’s driver licence division emailed colleagues in the department on June twentieth.” Third image: a gif from The Simpsons, showing Ralph Wiggum alone at the very back of a moving bus and giggling “I’m in danger.” End I.D.]
CIS PEOPLE OF TEXAS WHO WORK IN PUBLIC OFFICE: Now is the time to step up and protect your fellow Texans and refuse to comply with these orders, or actively (but secretly) sabotage them. Everyone wants to pretend that they’d be the hero if we had been in whatever point in history, well history is being made now and it’s time to step into the role for real.
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