In the face of a terrifying crisis, LGBTQ+ Texans must draw on all their decades of experience at mutual aid and building community in order to survive.
Almost every day the federal government seems to launch new attacks on the rights of transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming and intersex people, leaving many of them frightened for their future: their ability to work, attend school, receive medical care and to exist openly in public spaces. At the same time, trans Texans are watching the Texas Legislature with trepidation, as it hashes out its 89th session. The Transgender Education Network of Texas has identified 114 bills* filed in the lege which target the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the state, mostly trans folks. Right now, it’s unclear which of these have a chance of hitting the Governor’s desk, noted Landon Ritchie, policy coordinator at TENT.
“We are seeing pretty much attacks on or attempted attacks on queer and trans Texans in every aspect of public life and we’re expecting to see a lot more, but we’re also grounding ourselves and reminding community that not all these bills have equal chances of becoming law,” he told Deceleration.
“We are seeing pretty much attacks on or attempted attacks on queer and trans Texans in every aspect of public life … but we’re also grounding ourselves and reminding community that not all these bills have equal chances of becoming law.”
—Landon Ritchie
While nonprofits like TENT, the ACLU of Texas and Equality Texas are responding with all of their usual tactics, from advocacy days where people meet with their legislators at the capitol to lawsuits against potentially illegal executive orders and other policies, they’re also acknowledging the limits of their power and calling on the community to step up by building networks of direct care and support.
“There will be a lot of ways to sort of connect with people in your region, in your city, or in your school, and that is going to be really important going forward as we brace for what’s to come,” Ritchie added.
As part of our ongoing series Preparing to Protect, Deceleration spoke to both nonprofits and LGBTQ+ community leaders about how they’re getting organized to defend their rights and their lives.
TAKE ACTION: If you're able to get to the Texas Capitol, you can participate in two upcoming advocacy days at the legislature. TENT is organizing an advocacy day on behalf of transgender Texans on March 10. A number of additional organizations, including Equality Texas, ACLU of Texas, Lambda Legal, Human Rights Campaign and others are organizing an LGBTQ+ advocacy day and rally on March 24. Equality Texas also offers regional advocacy days in major cities throughout the state.
Whether it’s bathroom bans, banning transgender people from accessing healthcare, or preventing funding from going to schools and other organizations that affirm the identities of trans folks, Texas and other Southern states have been a proving ground for the repressive policies we now see proposed or implemented at a national level. As a result, organizers and nonprofits are experienced in blocking some (though not all) of the worst of these.
“The data we collect session after session has shown a steady increase in legislation targeting LGBTQ folks,” said Brad Pritchett, the interim chief executive officer at Equality Texas.
During the previous session, he noted that “thankfully, with the work that we did with our partner organizations within our All In For Equality coalition, all the folks who turned out to the Capitol, all the advocates and activists, we were able to stop about 95 percent of all those bills from passing.”
Pritchett warned that most of these bills are never intended to get out of committee, much less be voted on by the entire legislature. Instead, lawmakers know they can score points or “get attention” from right-wing voters and donors simply by filing proposed legislation. Across the entire session, it’s not unusual for over 10,000 bills to be filed; only a small percentage of those pass.
“Don’t obsess over every bill that gets filed,” Pritchett said. It’s better to let the experts at the nonprofits handle that side of things, so that queer and trans Texans don’t worry about every bad idea that a Republican lawmaker or think tank dreams up.
“That’s what we’re here for. We’ll make sure folks have the information for when those are moving and how to strategically engage, to push back against them. Save your mental health. Don’t go down the legislative rabbit hole looking at every bad bill.”
While the pro-LGBTQ+ nonprofits are still encouraging people to come out to testify against harmful legislation, they’re being more selective about the tactic than in some past sessions.
Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist on LGBTQ+ rights at the ACLU of Texas, said it makes more sense to show up and testify in the House, rather than the Senate, thanks to the increasingly extreme conservative politics of the latter chamber.
“Frankly, most [senators] are just going to do whatever the lieutenant governor wants them to do, and they’re not going to treat the community well when the community shows up.” Hall told Deceleration.
By contrast, they said that people do have a chance to make a difference by testifying before the Texas House of Representatives, thanks to the presence of more supportive Democrats as well as ongoing tensions between Republicans in the two chambers.
“On the House side, you have a lot more legislators in both parties who are interested in what people have to say at these committee hearings, who may be willing to edit their bills based on the feedback that they get, who may be willing to change their minds,” Hall said.
In May 2023, during the last legislative session, state troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety unexpectedly and violently arrested two people during a rally against a bill which banned gender-affirming care for minors—a bill which ultimately became law. This incident, along with the general intensification of Republican anti-trans rhetoric since then, has led to increased caution about how, and when to deploy community members to the Capitol for rallies, or even to testify, according to Hall. “Something that we’re looking at right now is how do we make it as safe as possible for community members who want to testify or visit legislators to be able to do that without risk of harm or assault.”
That’s one reason why advocacy days can be a benefit: they give constituents a chance to meet supportive lawmakers—such as members of the House LGBT Caucus—whose offices may provide a safer space should visitors feel unsafe, or overwhelmed during subsequent visits.
“My door is always open to folks, whether you’ve met me or not,” said Texas Representative Jessica Gonzalez (D-Dallas), one of the founding members of the LGBT Caucus. She emphasized that she’s far from the only lawmaker willing to offer a quiet, safe place for visitors. “I know that there are times that people are scared or they’re frustrated, or they just need a quiet spot to sit because they just had a hard conversation with a legislator.”
Beyond simply opposing harmful legislation as it begins moving through the legislature, Gonzalez and other members of the caucus—which is open to allies as well as lawmakers who are part of the LGBTQ+ community—seek to advance positive legislation that would actually improve the lives of their queer and trans constituents. So far, there are 68 positive bills in TENT’s legislation tracker.
Since 2019, Gonzalez has promoted the passage of a comprehensive nondiscrimination law protecting LGBTQ+ people. Currently, Texans can be discriminated against in the workplace or for housing on the basis of their sexual orientation or because they are transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming.
This session, her goal is to finally get the bill in front of a committee.
“My goal is to get a hearing to be able to have those positive conversations on the positive effects of being an inclusive state and a welcoming state,” Rep. Gonzalez said.
If it seems like the state’s pro-LGBTQ+ nonprofits are working from a familiar playbook, and one that’s painfully limited in the face of near-genocidal threats from the federal government, the representatives of these organization we spoke with were quick to acknowledge these limitations, and the need to dig deeper in order to protect queer and trans folks.
“Our opponents are going to be emboldened by the Trump administration,” Hall acknowledged. “They’re going to want to follow the direction that he takes things and so that will make the work trickier, but it won’t make it impossible.”
A lot of the fight, they noted, will take place outside of the legislature and the courts. “I think it’s going to be really important for our communities and our allies to take care of each other, provide resources for each other that the governments may take away from us. Support each other and help us pay for services we may lose, things like that.”
The growing pressure on the LGBTQ+ community has also forced more community-oriented groups to begin searching for ways to protect each other from an increasingly repressive government.
The Local Queer, a popular social group for transgender and Sapphic residents of the Austin area, is primarily known for hosting book groups and happy hours. But the group pivoted to a more direct support role after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton indicated in late 2023 that he was moving to ban trans Texans from updating the gender markers on their drivers’ licenses, according to Chase Brunson, the group’s cofounder.
“It’s a very stressful time to be a queer leader anywhere in the world right now, but especially here in Texas, especially here in the U.S., because when it comes down to it, I have to worry about my own safety, but I also have Local Queer,” Brunson said. “We have a following behind us, and so we also have a community that’s looking up to us for safe events … for information. They’re looking at us for education that they don’t necessarily have,”
Before Trump was able to place a federal ban on transgender people updating their passports, the group held a successful drag show fundraiser that paid for passport clinics that helped about 100 Austinites receive updated federal identification. Since then, they’ve been focused on building connections to other groups like theirs, in the hopes of building shared resiliency.
Democrasexy is another organization focused on community survival and political empowerment, but with a playful twist. Founder Becky Bullard leads events like Tex Support, a monthly support group for LGBTQ+ residents, cohosted with the help of a licensed therapist.
The goal is to help participants face their fears and feel more empowered to fight back.
“At the end, everybody [feels like] this huge weight has lifted because we’re looking directly at the problem with other people, and it feels like, ‘Okay, I’m not alone. I have this group of people who I’m connected with. We are facing this together and we’re gonna get through it,'” Bullard said.
Calls to LGBTQ+ crisis hotlines have skyrocketed since the inauguration, and the importance of prioritizing community survival, and supporting queer folks’ mental health, came up throughout our conversations with LGBTQ+ advocates.
“It’s definitely okay to feel discouraged, it’s okay to cope,” said Jacob Reyes, Texas representative for the national LGBTQ+ nonprofit GLAAD. “It’s okay to take a step back and reflect on the challenges that we face, and say to yourself, ‘Hey, maybe I do need to take some time for myself.'”
Reyes admitted he struggles with similar feelings, at times: “I do worry sometimes that things are never going to get better. But what I see is a collection of people in Texas, not just from our state organizations, but locally my friends, my neighbors, people I see at queer spaces who are still defiant and expressing themselves through drag, through art, through activism, or just simply being.”
He continued, “When you’re ready to say, ‘Okay, how can I contribute to the movement?’ I promise you, there are people who are going to be there who are going to extend a hand and make sure that not only are you safe, but that your power is going to make an impact.”
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Jennifer Lane is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives in San Antonio. Follow her on Instagram @jenniferlanestudio
*Originally reported as 140. Changed March 1, 2025.
