Members of the trans community in Texas face a two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for disclosing their gender to a government employee or their employer.
Since President Donald Trump took back the White House in January, a series of executive orders have been issued, this one being the most recent.
This has included the president trying to prevent transgender persons from enlisting in the military and prohibiting transgender women from playing women’s sports, as well as Euphoria star Hunter Schafer being issued a passport that makes her’male’.
‘House Bill 3817’ is the name of the proposed legislation that Republican state representative Tom Oliverson submitted.
“An act relating to creating the criminal offense of gender identity fraud,” according to the proposal.
It would be implemented by adding this new type of fraud to the Texas Penal Code.
It explains ‘gender identity fraud’ as being: “A person commits an offense if the person knowingly makes a false or misleading verbal or written statement to a governmental entity or the person’s employer by identifying the person’s biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth.”
“An offense under this section is a state jail felony.”
If approved, the act would go into force in September.
It would effectively prohibit transgender individuals in Texas from disclosing their gender identity to law enforcement, employers, or on any government application. They would have to pretend to be the gender they were given at birth instead.
Naturally, the measure would need to be approved before it could be implemented, and the Texas Legislature tracker indicates that this is unlikely to happen as it has not been referred to any committee and has no co-sponsor.
Only seven months have passed since the Texas Department of Public Safety issued an order for its employees to cease granting transgender individuals the option to change their gender on their driver’s license and state ID.
American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Texas division issued the following statement on the back of the move: “The Department of Public Safety has a responsibility, as stated in its own name, to keep all Texans safe. This policy does the opposite.”
“Not having accurate driver’s licenses jeopardizes trans people’s health and safety — by potentially outing us and exposing us to discrimination, harassment, and violence. State agencies can’t ignore court orders nor is DPS allowed to collect or share people’s personal information for political aims.”
“This relentless targeting of transgender Texans is yet another alarming attack on our privacy, safety, and dignity. Trans people deserve to live free from persecution in Texas and everywhere else.”
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