False pamphlets causing backlash and confusion, Texas transgender rights group says

Pamphlets purporting to come from a transgender rights organization — mailed to families across Texas and igniting a storm of criticism from conservatives — came from a company formed last month in Wyoming.

Social media posts began circulating Monday and Tuesday, the opening days of early voting for the Nov. 3 midterm election, that showed a pamphlet marketed as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ students from the Texas Transgender Student Union.

The mailers, addressed to the “student” of the household, include sections encouraging youth to speak with a “safe adult” or one of several advocacy groups if their parents don’t support their identity. The mailers say parents’ don’t need to be involved with a student’s transgender identity and include a section about emancipation, when a minor becomes legally recognized as an adult.

A Texas Tribune review of online records shows a limited liability company, the Texas Transgender Student Union, was formed in early September in Wyoming, according to the state’s business records. The address listed on the mailers for the student union is a Houston-area post office box. The Wyoming LLC was first reported by Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli.

All of the online resources listed in the pamphlet link to the Texas Transgender Education Network, an advocacy group referred to as TENT, including a page encouraging students to contact the group. The organization has denied involvement in the mailers and said in a statement posted on its website that the pamphlets “do not represent the official position” of the organization.

TENT’s online materials do not promote or offer guidance to LGBTQ+ youth on seeking emancipation. The group’s resources primarily provide information on how to interact with state laws restricting bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth and prohibitions on certain school groups, as well as guidance on how parents of transgender children should interact with Child Protective Services.

While the group has denied any involvement with the mailers or similar texts that were sent last week, backlash against the group has been harsh, including threats of violence, the organization said. TENT recently locked its website to a single page with a statement about the mailers and texts.

“These instances will not shake our commitment to the dignity and humanity of trans youth, trans Texans, their families, and their loved ones,” the statement said. “Trans Texans belong here in Texas, this is our home and we’re not going anywhere.”

TENT said it still does not know who sent the texts. The organization last week sent a cease and desist letter demanding two digital messaging companies stop sending the texts, which offered to answer questions about gender-affirming care in Texas and guides on bathroom use for “trans kids at school.”

Conservative political commentators have shared the mailers online and linked it to the organization, including one that shared images of TENT’s board alongside the mailer.

Jon Bonck, Republican candidate for Texas’ 38th Congressional District, called the mailer “disgusting and evil” in a social media post Sunday and posted Tuesday that those accusing the mailer of being fake did not address its contents.

“The radical left is trying to brainwash Texan children and unravel the basic framework of our society,” Bonck said.

Democrats and others took to social media to criticize the pamphlets as an obvious ploy to rally conservative voters in a midterm election that has Texas Democratic candidates polling stronger than they have in decades. Republicans have focused on support for transgender Texans as a sign that Democrats are out of touch with most Texas voters and described the information in the pamphlet as predatory.

A mailer ID for two of the pamphlets received by Tribune employees were associated with Maryland-based mail tracking company SnailWorks, according to a U.S. Postal Service employee who searched the IDs provided by the Tribune. SnailWorks’ services include political mail tracking to help coordinate campaign material disbursement, according to its website.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has paid Snailworks a total of $57,300 for “list rental” over the past two years, according to a Federal Election Commission search of campaign finance reports.

Snailworks did not respond to a request for comment.

The texts from last week prompted Texas Rep. Jeff Leach to ask the state attorney general’s office to investigate TENT for “circumventing and violating” state law. When asked about TENT’s lack of involvement in the texts, the Plano Republican said he was still “very interested to see what that investigation uncovers.”

TENT was not the only group to receive backlash over the texts and mailers. Preservation Austin, a nonprofit focused on historic preservation, received more than a dozen phone calls after its number was labeled as TENT’s on social media, an employee said. The nonprofit said the two groups are not connected, and employees were confused when calls began coming in about mailers they hadn’t seen.