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HOUSTON — Employees on the Texas Department of Public Safety in June obtained a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office: to compile an inventory of people who had modified their gender on their Texas driver’s licenses and different division data throughout the previous two years.
“Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month,” the chief of the DPS driver license division emailed colleagues within the division on June 30, in accordance with a duplicate of a message obtained by The Washington Post via a public data request. “We won’t need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents.”
After greater than 16,000 such cases had been recognized, DPS officers decided {that a} handbook search could be wanted to find out the explanation for the modifications, DPS spokesperson Travis Considine informed The Post in response to questions.
“A verbal request was received,” he wrote in an e mail. “Ultimately, our team advised the AG’s office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced. Thus, no data of any kind was provided.”
Asked who in Paxton’s office had requested the data, he replied: “I cannot say.”
The behind-the-scenes effort by Paxton’s office to acquire data on what number of Texans had modified their gender on their licenses got here because the legal professional normal, Gov. Greg Abbott and different Republican leaders within the state have been publicly marshaling sources in opposition to transgender Texans.
Abbott signed a invoice final 12 months banning transgender youths from collaborating at school sports activities that align with their gender identification at Okay-12 public colleges, and earlier this 12 months he ordered the state to investigate the provision of gender-affirming care as potential child abuse. State lawmakers have already proposed greater than a dozen anti-LGBTQ measures forward of the following legislative session in January, together with criminalizing gender-affirming care and banning minors at drag reveals.
Public data obtained by The Post don’t point out why the legal professional normal’s office sought the motive force’s license information. But advocates for transgender Texans say Paxton may use the data to additional prohibit their proper to transition, calling it a chilling effort to secretly harness private information to persecute already weak folks.
“This is another brick building toward targeting these individuals,” stated Ian Pittman, an Austin legal professional who represents Texas mother and father of transgender kids investigated by the state. “They’ve already targeted children and parents. The next step would be targeting adults. And what better way than seeing what adults had had their sex changed on their driver’s licenses?”
Alexis Salkeld Garcia, 34, of Austin, a trans lady who modified the gender listed on her driver’s license from male to feminine a 12 months and a half in the past, stated the legal professional normal’s office inquiry made her really feel “terrified.”
“It’s very specifically targeted, and the one person I don’t want knowing about my gender status is Ken Paxton,” stated Salkeld Garcia, a software program engineer who worries state officers may attempt to change the gender listed on her driver’s license again to male.
“I don’t want a cop pulling me over and knowing I’m trans. That is why I changed my gender marker extremely quickly” after transitioning, she stated.
Paxton’s office didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The data obtained by The Post, which doc communications amongst DPS staff, are titled “AG Request Sex Change Data” and “AG data request.” They point out that Paxton’s office sought the data a month after the state Supreme Court ruled that Paxton and Abbott had overreached of their efforts to research households with transgender kids for youngster abuse.
Paxton’s office bypassed the conventional channels — DPS’ authorities relations and normal counsel’s workplaces — and went straight to the motive force license division workers in making the request, in accordance with a state worker aware of it, who stated the workers was informed that Paxton’s office needed “numbers” and later would need “a list” of names, in addition to “the number of people who had had a legal sex change.”
During the next two months, the worker stated, the DPS workers searched its data for modifications within the “sex” class of not solely driver’s licenses but additionally state ID playing cards accessible from start, learner’s permits issued to these age 15 and up, industrial licenses, state election certificates, and occupational licenses. The worker spoke on the situation of anonymity to keep away from retaliation for describing inside state discussions.
DPS workers members compiled an inventory of 16,466 gender modifications between June 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, public data present. In the emails, DPS workers members repeatedly referred to the request as coming from the legal professional normal’s office as they mentioned trying to slender the data to incorporate solely licenses that had been altered to mirror a court-ordered change in somebody’s gender.
DPS workers members did spot checks on the data, analyzing data that included names of particular people, in accordance with data and the state worker aware of the inquiry. But it was onerous to weed out driver’s licenses that had been modified in error, or a number of occasions, or for causes apart from gender modifications.
“It will be very difficult to determine which records had a valid update without a manual review of all supporting documents,” an assistant supervisor within the DPS driver’s license division wrote in an e mail to colleagues on July 22.
On Aug. 4, the division chief emailed workers members, “We have expended enough effort on this attempt to provide data. After this run, have them package the data that they have with the high level explanations and close it out.” On Aug. 18, a senior supervisor emailed to say a data engineer had “provided the data request by the AG’s office (attached).”
Last month, The Post made a request to Paxton’s office for all data the legal professional normal’s office had directed different state workplaces to compile associated to driver’s licenses through which the intercourse of the motive force was modified, in addition to associated emails between Paxton’s office and different state companies.
Officials indicated that no such data existed.
“Why would the Office of the Attorney General have gathered this information?” Assistant Attorney General June Harden wrote in an e mail to The Post, later including, “Why do you believe this is the case?”
If it did, Harden stated, any data had been most likely exempt from launch due to both attorney-client privilege or confidentiality.
Marisol Bernal-Leon, a spokesperson for the legal professional normal’s office, later emailed that the office “has reviewed its files and has no information responsive to your request” for both data it had requested from DPS or emails between the legal professional normal’s office and DPS.
Separately, DPS supplied The Post with a half-dozen paperwork spanning three months that referenced the request by Paxton’s office.
When The Post shared copies of the data that had been supplied by DPS, Assistant Attorney General Lauren Downey famous that “none of the records provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety are communications with the Office of the Attorney General. Our response to your request was accurate.”
Downey didn’t reply to questions on why the DPS emails check with the request as originating from the legal professional normal. Paxton’s office has but to answer one other public data request for any data of its contact with DPS regarding driver’s license modifications by way of means apart from e mail, together with telephone calls, video conferences and in-person exchanges.
The earlier try by Paxton and his allies to direct state companies to determine mother and father of transgender youths and examine them for youngster abuse has largely been blocked by the courts.
Last 12 months, lawmakers within the Republican-dominated legislature didn’t go a measure that might have criminalized gender reassignment care, which main medical associations have deemed science-based medical care. Afterward, Republican state Rep. Matt Krause — chair of the state House committee on normal investigating — contacted Paxton, who issued a legal opinion that gender-affirming look after minors could possibly be thought-about youngster abuse. Days later, Abbott directed the state youngster welfare company to research mother and father facilitating such care for his or her kids, sparking a number of investigations inside days, according to public records.
After Abbott issued the directive, company workers members were told not to communicate in writing about it, together with emails and texts, in accordance with public data.
Some of the households sued, profitable a brief statewide injunction in Doe v. Abbott, blocking the investigations till the lawsuit reached the state Supreme Court in May. The courtroom overturned the injunction on procedural grounds however discovered that Paxton’s authorized opinion was not binding and that Abbott didn’t have the authority to direct state youngster welfare workers members to provoke youngster abuse investigations of households with transgender kids.
“[N]either the Governor nor the Attorney General has statutory authority to directly control DFPS’s investigatory decisions,” the courtroom dominated.
But Pittman, the legal professional who has represented Texas mother and father of transgender kids, famous that legal professionals for the legal professional normal’s office later argued in opposition to what the Supreme Court had decided: that Republican leaders “had political tools but they could not direct the department in that way.” He stated they seemed to be “ignoring direct Supreme Court statements.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal additionally sued to cease the investigations on behalf of PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group with greater than 600 members in Texas. A county decide in Austin dominated of their favor in September, blocking the state from investigating PFLAG members. That lined a lot of the dozen households the state admitted to investigating however not essentially all, stated Shelly Skeen, a Dallas-based senior legal professional at Lambda Legal working on the PFLAG and Doe v. Abbott instances.
Skeen known as the legal professional normal’s inquiry into driver’s license data “a gross violation of privacy” meant to “target one group of people to fire up their base while transgender people are just trying to live their lives.”
“The constitutional issues that this raises are equal protection and due process under the 14th Amendment as well as discrimination based on sex,” Skeen stated.
Some Texas judges seal or prohibit entry to courtroom data of gender modifications for privateness causes, but additionally as a result of transgender people have been harassed on-line and confronted threats of violence, Skeen stated.
“If you do not have access to identity documents that match who you are, you are outed every time you show an ID,” Skeen stated, “and this is what leads to the discrimination, harassment and violence that transgender people face.”
Smith Puerto of Austin, who identifies as transgender and nonbinary, modified their Texas driver’s license from feminine to male a couple of 12 months in the past. Puerto, 34, who works in shopper companies at a tech firm, has been coaching with their spouse of 5 years to foster an LGBTQ teen and figured that they had a greater probability making use of as a male, though there have been dangers.
“You definitely out yourself,” by altering the paperwork, stated Puerto, who has had surgical procedure, takes hormones and stated they usually go as male.
“In a state like Texas, you don’t always want people to know you’re different,” Puerto stated, calling the legal professional normal’s inquiry “horrifying.”
“It’s scary to know what he would want to do with that data,” they stated.
Puerto, who moved to Texas from Ohio 9 years in the past, stated they fear Paxton and different Republican leaders who’ve attacked the rights of transgender kids are making ready to focus on transgender adults like them when the Legislature reconvenes.
“It’s a constant conversation between my wife and I,” Puerto stated. “Every session we hold our breath, kind of watching what horrendous bills get filed, and wonder how much longer can we stay here.”
Salkeld Garcia, who additionally takes hormones and had gender reassignment surgical procedure, demonstrated in opposition to anti-trans laws on the Capitol final 12 months and known as the prospect of what lawmakers may do subsequent 12 months “very nerve-racking.”
“In Austin we have a vibrant trans community, a beautiful queer community,” she stated. “But it’s also scary, because it feels like you have a big fire burning all around you and you don’t know where it will spread or if it will burn you.”
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