Et tu, Dutton? Days after the anti-trans student athlete bill
Senate Bill 29 failed to pass out of the
Texas House Public Education Committee on Tuesday, May 4, committee Chair Rep.
Harold Dutton, D-Houston (yes, a Dem), moved to reconsider SB 29 on Friday, May 7, for no apparent reason other than personal spite, after an unrelated bill by Dutton was killed on the House floor the night before. Dutton admitted as much to the committee Friday morning, describing his move as a "consequence" because "the bill that was killed last night affected far more children than [SB 29] ever will." Chilling. The committee then voted 8-5 in favor of the bill. For a lawmaker to treat transgender and nonbinary kids' rights – and safety – so coolly, so cruelly, so cavalierly is shameful. Bills like SB 29 carry life-and-death implications for trans and nonbinary kids should they pass, and even if they aren't signed into law, the anti-LGBTQIA rhetoric created by them alone is still damaging. The Texas Legislature gavels out in less than three weeks. Until then,