Texas Governor Greg Abbott Wants to "End" Trans People Being Allowed to Teach in Texas

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The right continues to make the classroom a battleground for trans rights.

While speaking to a group of young conservatives on Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told attendees that he would like to limit the expression of transgender teachers in the classroom, according to audio shared online by Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli. To make his point, Abbott told attendees at the Young Conservatives of Texas convention a story about a teacher in Lewisville, Texas, who Abbott described as a “man who would go to school dressed as a woman in a dress, high heels, and makeup.”

Abbott appears to be referring to Rachmad Tjachyadi, who was a beloved teacher at Hebron High School in Lewisville, but resigned in March after being targeted online by Libs of TikTok for wearing a dress to a school spirit event. An investigation by the Lewisville Independent School District determined that Tjachyadi had not violated any district policies. But the science teacher resigned anyway, citing as a reason the “hateful comments” he received after the Libs of TikTok post and its subsequent backlash.

In his remarks, which misconstrued the situation surrounding Tjachyadi, Abbott continued, “What do you think is going through the mind of the students that’s in that classroom?,” he pondered out loud. “Are they focusing on the subject that this person is trying to teach?” After posing this hypothetical, Abbott said, “I don’t know.”

He then added, “What I do know are these two things: One is this person, a man, dressing as a woman, in a public high school in the state of Texas, he’s trying to normalize the concept that this type of behavior is OK. This type of behavior is not OK, and this is the type of behavior that we want to make sure we end in the state of Texas.”

On X, Monacelli pointed out that several Texas lawmakers supported Abbott’s anti-LGBTQ+ position.

Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi said Abbott was “exactly right,” while Republican state rep. Briscoe Cain responded to the audio by saying that “perverts should not be teachers.” Fellow state Republican Brent Money said “This is absolutely correct” in response to a tweet of the audio, while State Republican Executive Committee member Ronaldo Garcia supported Abbott, as well.

Abbott has been making anti-LGBTQ+ policy decisions a priority in his administration. In February 2022, he directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the families of trans children for child abuse for helping them access gender-affirming care. Texas lawmakers passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the state in May 2023, which Abbott signed in June. A month later, Abbott signed a law expanding the state’s ban on trans athletes playing on sports teams that match their gender identity from the K-12 level, which was banned in a 2021 bill, to public colleges, as well.

Despite Abbott suggesting he might want to limit teachers’ gender expression in classrooms, LGBTQ+ employees are protected under federal law against workplace discrimination. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and issued a trans teacher a temporary injunction against the law, NBC News reported. The Florida law barred the teacher from using pronouns that didn’t align with her birth sex, which Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said violated the teacher’s First Amendment rights.

The letter argues that Texas' anti-LGBTQ\+ laws amount to a “systemic discriminatory policy” and violate international human rights agreements.

“Once again, the State of Florida has a First Amendment problem,” Walker wrote. “Of late, it has happened so frequently, some might say you can set your clock by it.”

“The question before this Court,” Walker continued, “is whether the First Amendment permits the State to dictate, without limitation, how public-school teachers refer to themselves when communicating to students. The answer is a thunderous ‘no.’”

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Originally Appeared on them.