“There are no documented incidents in Texas of a transgender girl taking an athletic opportunity away from a cisgender girl,” Texas Representative Erin Zwiener (D-45th District) told the Morning News. She added, however, that “the damage done to the mental health of our transgender students is well-documented.”
Wesley Story, the communications director at Progress Texas, added that “even proponents of the bill could not give real life examples of the scenarios they claim they’re trying to prevent.”
“The trans sports ban is a harmful ‘solution’ in search of a nonexistent problem,” Story added in a statement.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki did not tell the Morning News whether or not the administration would file legal action against HB 25 after joining lawsuits in favor of trans rights earlier this year. In June, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed statements of interest in two lawsuits against West Virginia and Arkansas after they passed laws blocking transgender kids from school sports and banning affirming medical care for trans youth, respectively.
Psaki affirmed, however, that “the president’s view is that transgender rights are human rights, whether for adults or kids.”
President Biden has asserted that since day one of his presidency, when he signed an executive order instructing all federal agencies to implement the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling that LGBTQ+ people are covered by federal nondiscrimination laws. Biden also told trans Americans that the “president has your back” in an April joint address to Congress, although some advocates criticized him for not taking substantive action against anti-trans laws at the time.
But Texas has also shot back at the Biden administration to defend its right to discriminate against trans people.
In September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit to block guidance that asserted the rights of queer and trans people in the workplace — including the usage of correct bathrooms, dress codes, and pronouns. Paxton referred to the guidance as “extreme federal overreach” and a risk to “women and children.”
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