Texas Republicans are going all-in on stomping out LGBTQ+ youth. The Austin Independent School District (ISD) celebrates Pride Week this week as a way to honor, celebrate, and educate people about LGBTQ+ issues and identities. Great! Not so great? School administrators at Doss Elementary have received death threats over events related to Pride Week. And Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a letter to the district alleging they’re violating state laws by hosting the themed week, period, as reported by The Independent.
Paxton, mind you, is the same conservative who wrote an asinine opinion arguing that gender-affirming care is child abuse, which was the basis for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott directing state agencies to investigate supportive families of trans youth.
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“By hosting ‘Pride Week,’ your district has, at best, undertaken a week-long instructional effort in human sexuality without parental consent,” Paxton wrote in the letter to the district, which he also posted on Twitter. He went on to suggest an alternative, which includes the district “cynically pushing” a week-long “indoctrination” without parental consent.
“Either way,” he writes. “You are breaking state law.”
Here is that tweet.
Again: The point of celebrating something like Pride Week is about inclusivity, education, and community building. It’s safe, supportive, and generally involves things like handing out Pride Flags and rainbow stickers. No one is being indoctrinated into anything.
At the elementary school level, for example, Doss Principal Nathan Steenport told local outlet KUT they made time for teachers to talk to students about identity, feelings, different family structures, and how to respect people who are different. Lovely! Apparently teachers asked students to respect each other’s privacy and not gossip about what people shared, which somehow turned into people saying students were told not to tell their parents about what they were learning, which was … not the case.
“It doesn’t mean don’t tell your parents,” Steenport added to KUT, saying the concept was so people felt comfortable sharing in a safe space.
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But after the agenda was shared with parents ahead of time (with the option to opt their students out of the lessons if they wanted), the district began receiving threats over the phone, text messages, social media accounts, and emails. This led to local police getting involved to make sure students and staff are safe.
Notably, not all of the threats are even from people who live in the district. It seems like just another way for conservatives to stir up hysteria and hate even if they don’t have actual skin in the game.
In terms of Paxton’s letter, Jason Stanford, a spokesperson for the district, told The Washington Post that they’re going to double down on “making sure our kids feel safe and celebrating Pride.”
We should all be doing our part to support and celebrate LGBTQ+ youth, and at the very least, work to keep them safe.
