According to the Christian Post, parents took to Reddit, an online forum, saying they got text messages promoting the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT)’s back-to-school guide on its website. The guide talks about bathrooms, student clubs, names and pronouns, and includes separate resources for students, families and school employees.
However, TENT has denied sending the messages.
AFA heard from a Texas caller that said they knew of a postal service worker that had seen mailouts with similar content.
Jonathan Covey, a director at Texas Values, says the timing of the text messages and mailouts is interesting, right at election time, but is not conclusive.
“The concern is that parents deserve transparency, girls deserve privacy, even students deserve accurate information. This toolkit, from what we can tell, is something that was previously on the TENT website and is part of their source material,” Covey says. “It portrays parental involvement as an infringement on youth autonomy, and it challenges protections for privacy in school bathrooms and locker rooms. Those are just serious concerns.”
Because of the denial, Texas Values is focusing their attention more on the content TENT’s toolkit. In a social media post, they said the toolkit emphasized that civil fines under the Texas Women’s Privacy Act or SB 8 cannot be applied to individuals and risks the misleading impression that violating facility rules is acceptable or carries no personal consequences.
“Our concern is that the impression that students may take away is there can be no personal consequences for disregarding those things, for a guy going into a girls’ bathroom or locker room,” Covey says.
With the reveal of the trans toolkit, Texas State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-District 67) has sent a formal request to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate TENT for helping others undermine the state’s parent rights law. Leach also wants Paxton to look into how TENT acquired individuals' personal information and if it breached data-security laws.
