The culture war moves to committee
In this screen cap from the Senate Committee on Stat Affairs’ hearing on SB 15, Texas Freedom Network’s Adri Perez, at right, addresses lawmakers The first anti-transgender piece of legislation is heard by Senate committee DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writertaffet@dallasvoice.com Friday, March 10, was the last day lawmakers could file new legislation for the 2023 regular session, and Equality Texas’ final “bad” bill count in the 88th Texas Legislature is 137 “bad bills” intended to take rights away from the LGBTQ community, compared to 135 “good” bills, intended to guarantee LGBTQ equality.
In a variation on the theme of punishing the physician for providing life-saving care to trans youth, a late-filed bill by state Rep.
Tony Tinderholt of Tarrant County would prohibit trans care up until age 26. And state Rep. Bryan Slayton of Mineola wants to make sure that the state abortion ban targets transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive individuals in a bill filed just before the deadline.
Almost 30 bills propose a state constitutional amendment to enshrine the parental “right to direct the upbringing of their child,” including the right to “direct the care, custody, control, education, moral and religious training and medical care” of the child — Unless, that is, the state doesn’t like the religion you’ve chosen, if your morals are different than theirs or they disagreed with the type of medical care you may be providing for your trans child.
