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West Texas DA opens forgery probe into transgender mailers (www.texastribune.org)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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A Republican district attorney in West Texas has opened a criminal investigation into pamphlets mailed to homes across Texas purporting to come from a transgender rights organization.

Sarah Stogner, district attorney for Loving, Reeves and Ward counties west of Odessa, told The Texas Tribune that her office is investigating the mailers as a potential forgery but said the scope could expand as new information comes in. Forgery is a state jail felony under Texas law.

Stogner said she felt the mailers — which were marketed as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ students from the Texas Transgender Student Union, a group recently formed in Wyoming — were an obvious bid to agitate voters ahead of the November midterm elections.

“If this ends up being legal, it is everything that is wrong with our current political climate,” Stogner said.

The origin of the mailers is currently unknown, Stogner said. The student union listed as the sender was formed as a limited liability company in Wyoming in September, records show. The group’s address on the mailer was listed as a Houston-area post office box.

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[–] 4 points 2 days ago (6 children)

As a non-Texan can someone explain what is happening? Is anyone trying to send misleading information to LGBTQIA+ students? Or is this all about falsely associating a group with pamphlets and other communications that seem to be deemed illegal?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago

    It's not that it would be illegal. In theory, there's nothing illegal about trans support groups sending mailers like this to every house in a state. Actual trans groups don't do this because we're fucking stupid. LGBT groups always operate on a model of "you come to us, we don't come to you." Trans groups don't run literal recruitment campaigns.

    If actual trans groups did this, the political backlash would be immense. You start "messing with" people in their homes, reaching out directly to their children? If an actual trans group did this, they would be politically suicidal.

    The allegation is that some third party is misrepresenting the actual work of trans activists. They produce a pamphlet that has actual information and resources in it. But this is the kind of information normally given out as pamphlets in groups and queer centers. You normally have to go looking for it. Or on a website that is explicitly trans or queer. The allegation is that they produced a pamphlet of true information but then used it in ways actual trans people never would. I'm not sure how specifically that maps to criminal fraud law, but it might relate to some statute involving undue influence on elections.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

    The conservative fasly claim is that LGBT (especially the T) are child predators. So, I'm betting this is to further whip the MAGAts into a frenzy.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I understand that part but what does the fraud have to do with this? I’m not understanding that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    The pamphlets make repeated references to the Transgender Education Network of Texas, sparking criticism that has included threats of violence, a lawyer for the organization said Thursday. TENT officials say the organization had nothing to do with the mailers and believe they were an attempt to influence the midterm elections and harm the group’s reputation.

    “These messages were deliberately distributed in a manner calculated to cause maximum harm to TENT and to create confusion and strife among the Texas electorate,” a TENT spokesperson said in an email.

    Mimi Marziani, one of TENT’s lawyers, said the pamphlet adopted the “look and feel” of TENT’s real materials but mixed resources with information the group does not support — including information about the legal process for minors to be recognized as an adult.

    The pamphlets were designed to appear to come from a actual group, Transgender Education Network of Texas. The group says they did not send them and that the flyers include information that TENT does not support, information that is clearly intended to outrage conservative voters. That's fraud.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    It was fraudulently distributed to whip the people into a hate-fueled craze about transgender people so they turn out to vote? Attacking trans people is like catnip to these people.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago*

    It's likely not only not a trans group but it's incorporated in Wyoming and the flyers have an address in Texas. Pretty sketchy. If I blanketed my neighborhood with flyers for the California Fascist Party it would create the impression there was a California Fascist Party. And if I endorsed a Yes vote on certain judges (who usually run nonpartisan and with very little advertising, they're appointed by a governor but have to be pre-approved by voters periodically) I bet people would vote No on them. Just as I vote against anything endorsed by Howard Jarvis.

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