Pamphlets purporting to be from a transgender rights organization — mailed to families across Texas and sparking a firestorm 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 elections, showing a brochure marketed as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ students from the Texas Transgender Student Union.
The letters, addressed to “students” at the home, include sections encouraging young people to speak with a “trusted adult” or one of several advocacy groups if their parents do not support their identity. The letters state that parents do not need to be involved in a student’s transgender identity and include a section on emancipation, when a minor becomes legally recognized as an adult.
A review of Texas Tribune online records shows that a limited liability company, the Texas Transgender Student Union, was formed in early September in Wyoming, according to state business records. The address listed on student union mail is a post office box in the Houston area. The Wyoming LLC was first reported by Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli.
All online resources listed in the brochure link to the Transgender Education Network of Texas, an advocacy group called TENT, including a page encouraging students to contact the group. The organization denied any involvement in the mailings and said in a statement on its website that the brochures “do not represent the official position” of the organization.
TENT online materials do not promote or offer advice to LGBTQ+ youth in their quest for empowerment. The group’s resources primarily provide information on how to interact with state laws restricting bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth and bans on certain school groups, as well as advice on how parents of transgender children should interact with child protective services.
Although the group denied any involvement in similar letters or texts sent last week, backlash against the group has been severe, including threats of violence, the organization said. TENT recently locked its website to a single page containing a statement about mail and text messages.
“These cases will not shake our commitment to the dignity and humanity of trans youth, trans Texans, their families and 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 sent a cease-and-desist letter last week demanding that two digital messaging companies stop sending the texts, which offered to answer questions about gender-affirming care in Texas and guides on using the restroom for “trans kids at school.”
Conservative political commentators shared the mailers online and linked them to the organization, including one who shared images of the TENT 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 had not addressed its contents.
“The radical left is trying to brainwash Texas children and dismantle the fundamental framework of our society,” Bonck said.
Democrats and others have taken to social media to criticize the pamphlets as an obvious ploy to rally conservative voters in a midterm election in which Texas Democratic candidates are stronger than they have been in decades. Republicans have focused on supporting transgender Texans, a sign that Democrats are out of touch with most Texas voters, and have called the information in the pamphlet predatory.
The mail IDs for two of the pamphlets received by Tribune employees were associated with the Maryland-based mail tracking company SnailWorks, according to a U.S. Postal Service employee who looked up the IDs provided by the Tribune. SnailWorks’ services include tracking political mail to help coordinate the disbursement of campaign materials, according to its website.
The National Republican Congressional Committee paid Snailworks a total of $57,300 for “list rentals” 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.
Last week’s texts prompted Texas Rep. Jeff Leach to ask the state attorney general’s office to investigate TENT for “evasion and violation” of state law. Asked about TENT’s lack of involvement in the texts, the Plano Republican said he was still “very interested to see what this investigation reveals.”
TENT wasn’t the only group to face backlash over the text messages and mailers. Preservation Austin, a nonprofit focused on historic preservation, received more than a dozen phone calls after its number was tagged as TENT on social media, an employee said. The nonprofit said the two groups were not connected and employees were confused when calls started coming in about mail they hadn’t seen.
Gn usa
