Republican Texas state Rep. Tom Oliverson (Screen capture: KXAN/YouTube)
Republican Texas state Rep. Tom Oliverson introduced a bill last week that would prohibit Texans from identifying themselves as transgender on official documents.
The legislation would classify as a state felony the act of “knowingly [making] a false or misleading verbal or written statement” by identifying one’s birth sex incorrectly to a governmental entity or to an employer.
While the bill, according to the Houston Chronicle, does not yet have any cosponsors and is considered unlikely to pass, the effort underscores conservative lawmakers’ turn toward increasingly extreme measures targeting the trans community, particularly in Texas.
For example, Republican state Rep. Brent Money introduced a bill last month that would have expanded the 2023 law barring gender affirming health treatments for minors by also prohibiting providers from offering puberty-suppressing medication, hormone therapy or surgeries to adults if the purpose is to affirm their gender identity.
Equality Texas reports that the state legislature has seen more than 170 bills targeting the LGBTQ community so far this year.
Oliverson in 2024 unsuccessfully challenged the chamber’s Republican speaker, Dade Phelan.
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