LGBT Group Vows to Sue

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has just announced a special legislative session to force lawmakers to pass an anti-transgender “bathroom bill,” along with a score of bills advancing other conservative issues, including constricting abortion.

Insisting a special session was “entirely avoidable,” Governor Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement that since he’s now forced to bring lawmakers back to Austin, he intends “to make it count.” Abbott offered a list of goals for the session that begins mid-July, including,Â “Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers,” “Pro-life insurance reform,” “Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud,” and, “Privacy.”

Privacy, of course, is code for a vile “anti-trans bathroom bill.”

“Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had been pushing Abbott to call a special session on the bathroom issue,” the Texas Tribune reports. Calling “the bathroom issue … a priority of Patrick that dominated the regular session,” the Tribune notes it “is likely to be among the most controversial charges.”

LGBT and civil rights groups are outraged.

“Governor Greg Abbott is proving everything is bigger in Texas including prioritizing discrimination,” GLAAD President and CEOÂ Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement sent to NCRM.Â “If the governor moves forward with this harmful legislation against trans students, LGBTQ people, businesses, and fair-minded Texans will respond in Texas style â€“ Big.”Â

“Trans Texans have experienced harassment and threats because of this last session and if any anti-trans bills get signed into law, then Governor Abbottâ€™s legacy will be turning Texas into a state known for harming some its most marginalized people.”

Lambda Legal threatened to sue outright, calling the anti-transgender bill “misguided legislation driven by baseless fearmongering about transgender schoolchildren simply using the bathroom that matches who they are.”

“Anti-LGBT legislation along these lines has been a key focus ofÂ Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has sharply criticized the legislatureâ€™s inaction on several discriminatory bills,” Lambda Legal says, adding, “if the legislature does force discrimination targeting transgender schoolchildren into Texas law, you can bet that Lambda Legal will be on the case before the next school bell rings.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality’sÂ Executive Director, MaraÂ Keisling issued a statement saying:

â€œSeemingly from the regular sessionâ€™s start, several members of this legislature have made their mission to promote fear, misinformation and hatred toward the stateâ€™s most marginalized residents. Now, Governor Abbott wants to prolong this divisive session. His willingness to waste taxpayer dollars to put transgender childrenâ€™s safety and dignity on the chopping block is grossly irresponsible, at best, and downright abhorrent at worst.”

And Equality Texas CEO Chuck Smith:

On the heels of the recently-concluded 85th Legislative â€œSession of Oppressionâ€, during which Texas lawmakers passed egregious lawsÂ targeting LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants, it is extremely disappointing that Governor Greg Abbott is calling legislators back to passÂ a transgender bathroom bill and letting the lt. governor push him around on a non-existent problem that is morally bankrupt and will causeÂ billions of dollars of damage to our economy. Any such bathroom legislation that targets transgender Texans â€“ an already vulnerable population â€“ for unequal treatment and puts innocentÂ children in harmâ€™s way is unconscionable.Â Â The lieutenant governor and his longtime business partner Steven Hotze of Houston, whose groupÂ Conservative Republicans of Texas has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, have been pushing discrimination andÂ hate of LGBTQ people as their primary objective in life. Itâ€™s shameful and itâ€™s despicable.Â Â We believe Patrick is grand-standing, expressing fake outrage and misrepresenting the facts to manipulateÂ Texans who have not met our fellow transgender Texans. This is a trait not worthy of any person who holds public office.

One group not opposed to the special session is the anti-LGBT far right wing organization, Texas Values, headed by Jonathan Saenz.

To make sure the Texas Privacy Act passes this summer, we need your support. Donate at the following, secure link: https://t.co/19HfCoTZJm pic.twitter.com/LJZKMGEOE2 â€” Texas Values (@txvalues) June 6, 2017Â

Ironically, the only one of these groups who appears to be using the special session to fundraise is Texas Values.

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