News & Commentary

Misinformation is fueling an attack on trans youth in state legislatures. These attacks overwhelmingly focus on youth and schools. They try to make being trans shameful — but they won’t stop youth from being trans.

Activists fought to defeat 98% of the anti-trans laws the Texas legislature tried to pass this year. But that victory, Adri Perez writes, is bittersweet.

One of the hardest things about parenting is the fact that there are so many questions and so few definite answers on how to best take care of our kids. As that tiresome old cliché goes, kids don’t come with instruction manuals.  When we’re in doubt, we can consult the experts. Though I’m a research psychologist with a doctoral degree, I’m no different from other parents in this regard. I also look to experts who specialize in child development for guidance. 

This year’s Banned Books Week (Sept. 26-Oct. 2) has a renewed importance to me and the community of students I serve. You see, I’m a librarian at a public, inner-city high school in Houston. I’ve been an educator and librarian for more than 15 years. I’d like to think that I know what my kids like and need in the safe space I try to create for them through the library and all of its resources.  But I sometimes worry about pressures on school communities to censor and exclude certain kinds of information that we as educators strive to teach our kids, especially the ones that most need to see themselves in the materials they consume. What’s important for people to remember is that it’s not just books that are being censored, but any kind of information that can shape a narrative or idea, from a speaker invited to give a talk, to an LGBTQ Pride flag hanging in a window.  School districts in Texas are notorious for a more traditional form of idea censorship through the act of officially banning books from school libraries or book club lists. Earlier this year, 13 books were banned from school reading lists in the Leander Independent School District just outside of Austin. Some parents complained about books depicting sexual acts, violence, or profanity — all things that can be accessed in microseconds on a teenager’s smart phone. The situation got so tenuous that a school board member recently resigned. 

School classrooms should be safe and inclusive for all students. Across the state, many school staff — including teachers, coaches, and administrators — are already working to ensure that LGBTQIA+ students are able to exist and thrive as their authentic selves in Texas public schools. 

LGBTQ Pride Month started as a commemoration of the Stonewall Inn six-day protests in 1969. Since the first Pride event in 1970, June has become synonymous with a global celebration of the LGBTQ community, garnering the support of celebrities, politicians, and multinational corporations.

This piece was originally published in the Austin American-Statesman. Tell your State Representative to vote NO on SB 29 and let transgender kids be kids. This is our last chance to stop this cruel attack on the childhood of transgender Texans.

On April 14, 2021, I testified before the Texas House Public Health Committee to urge Texas lawmakers to oppose House Bill 1399, a dangerous attempt to deny gender-affirming medical care to transgender Texans. 

Today marks the opening of the 87th Texas Legislative Session — and it signals enormous opportunity and peril for civil liberties in Texas. With a tense national political climate, a pandemic devastating communities across Texas, and lingering racial unrest since the killing of George Floyd, this session will be one of the most challenging — and most important — we have seen in recent history.