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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 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.

  • source
  • parent