URGE Demands the Texas Senate Stops the Legislative Attack on Trans Youth After Texas House Passage of H.B. 25
October 15, 2021
Late last night, the Texas House of Representatives passed H.B. 25, a bill that would prohibit transgender students in public schools from competing on athletic teams that match their gender identity. If signed into law, H.B. 25 would force young people to either compete in potentially unsafe environments, hide who they are, or not participate in sports at all.
Special session after special session, extremist legislators have pushed variations of this bill, and each time, trans young people testified and kept this bill from moving forward. At the beginning of 87(3), the current special session, legislators sent variations of this bill to several committees to ensure that one of them would find a way forward. URGE has repeatedly submitted public comments to oppose the movement of the various bills attacking trans youth in athletics, including H.B. 25.
This attack on transgender young people is unconscionable. H.B. 25 is a calculated distraction from the real issues facing Texans and fuels a culture of stigma and violence against transgender children by reinforcing harmful stereotypes. All young people deserve the opportunity to find joy in, and benefit from, participation in sports. Transgender youth, like all children, want the same rights as their cisgender peers without entering hostile environments that force them to compromise who they are. H.B. 25 joins the onslaught of bad bills that the Texas Legislature has passed through its regular and special sessions.
As an organization committed to trans liberation, we urge the Texas Senate not to pass the bill to protect transgender young people in Texas.
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About URGE:
URGE envisions a liberated world where we can live with justice, love freely, express our gender and sexuality, and define and create families of our choosing. To achieve our vision of liberation, URGE builds power and sustains a young people’s movement for reproductive justice by centering the leadership of young people of color who are women, queer, trans, nonbinary, and people with low incomes. As a state-driven national organization, URGE organizes our communities, provides a political home for young people, advocates for meaningful policy change, and shifts culture, working in states where the challenges and opportunities are greatest.
