Year in review • A tumultuous Texas Legislature
Members of the Texas House’s LGBTQ Cauccus The 88th session of the Texas Legislature started out looking promising for the LGBTQ community, with a record eight LGBTQ members sworn into office.
Some of those eight were even assigned positions as vice chairs of committees. But things turned ugly quickly, as a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills were filed by lawmakers, many of them targeting transgender youth and the drag community.
Hostility toward the LGBTQ community took an ugly turn on Feb. 15 when two resolutions — one in the House and one in the Senate — welcoming visiting members of the state’s four LGBTQ Chambers of Commerce to the Capitol were voted down.
Welcoming resolutions are routinely passed by lawmakers; in fact, LGBTQ representatives couldn’t remember another such resolution having failed.
