Barely one week after the Texas Department of Public Safety took action blocking transgender Texans from pursuing a change in their gender markers on state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards, the Texas Department of State Health Services implemented a new policy last week with no public announcement in which transgender Texans can no longer update the sex listed on their birth certificates with a court order. The Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus demands in the strongest possible terms that the Texas state government stop the ongoing harmful action that state agencies are doing to fellow Texans.

 

“Ken Paxton continues to waste previous government resources to spearhead a state government assault on vulnerable and marginalized communities in Texas,” said Jessica Cohen and Mo Jenkins, Vice President and At-Large Officer respectively with the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus, and who identify as transgender. “Opponents of rights for LGBTQ+ Texans will stop at nothing to target our basic ability to live freely. Clearly radical Republicans are gearing up to come after us hard as part of their hateful Project 2025 policy manifesto. As a community, we will continue to fight back against aggressive and harmful government overreach targeting transgender Texans and other communities targeted by Paxton’s posse.”

 

As we did with the Department of Public Safety, the Board of Directors of the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus demand that the Department of State Health Services reverse their political policy decision immediately. We again do not expect the department will take this action, so we underscore to our allies and LGBTQ+ community members that the strongest recourse we have is the judicial system and our sacred power to vote out extreme and dangerous Republicans in November.     

​

###