Two Pronged Teahadist Attacks On Texas Collegiate TBLG Centers Terminated

The Texas Teahadists have had their water on for the LGBT centers on the Texas A&M, University of Houston and University of Texas campuses for some time and launched efforts to kill them in this 2013 legislative session. .  

It was a two pronged effort on the Texas A&M campus.  The homobigots on campus there have been trying for years to kill the GLBT center.   They launched another effort to take away its funding by authoring the 'GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill'  that would have given Aggie students the option to opt out of funding for the center if they have 'religious objections' to it.

Less than 24 hours before the April 3 vote they attempted to put lipstick on this pig of this unjust bill by renaming it the 'Religious Funding Exemption Bill' and removing all references to the GLBT center in a feeble attempt to mask the blatant anti-GLBT bigotry and deflect attention from the fact it was an attack upon the center. 

After 3 hours of contentious debate it passed on a 35-28 vote and the unjust bill was sent to Texas A&M student body president John L. Claybrook for his signature.   

Claybrook vetoed the unjust measure on April 5

News this week that some student senators had targeted the center thrust the traditionally conservative university into the national spotlight, and Claybrook said it was time to “stop the bleeding.”

“The damage must stop today,” Claybrook wrote in a letter announcing his intention to veto. “Texas A&M students represent our core value of respect exceptionally and I’m very proud of the family at this university. Now, more than ever, is the time to show great resolve and come together, treating each other like the family that we are.”

The future Teahadist student senators pushing this unjust measure can try to override Claybrook's veto, but it will take a 2/3 vote to do so.  It didn't have a 2/3 majority when it passed so it's likely the veto will stand.  Even if they were successful and it became A&M policy, it would almost certainly be struck down in court and expose the deafeningly silent senior Texas A&M administration officials to legal liability.  

Ken Upton, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal’s Dallas office, said even if the bill were signed and adopted as university policy, it wouldn’t last long.

“The most likely result is that a court would step in and stop it before it even happened,” Upton said.   He said there was clear legal precedent on the issue as laid out in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, where students sued their university because they opposed multicultural, environmental and GLBT groups.

“This issue is pretty well settled,” Upton said.

If somehow the measure did work its way through the courts, he said, top university officials could be held liable.

“… The people with decision making authority who allowed it to happen could be held liable full money damages,” Upton said. “But it would probably be struck down so quickly that money damages wouldn’t be an issue.”

Meanwhile, on the University of Houston campus their Student Government Association unanimously approved a resolution opposing the second prong of this attack on Texas collegiate LGBT centers  

Proud of my alma mater and their SGA!    


There was also victory on the Austin front as well.  State Rep Bill Zedler (R Teabagger-Arlington) proposed an unjust amendment to the state budget bill designed to eliminate LGBT resource centers on state university and college campuses. The amendment would also eliminate state funding for women's centers and all gender and sexuality centers at Texas universities.    Under pressure, he withdrew that amendment   

Hasta la vista, unjust bills.

So this two pronged attack on GLBT centers is terminated for now, but you know we Lone Star State progressives must be forever vigilant as long as the GOP has control of our state legislature and the governor's mansion because the homobigots will not stop until their mission is completed.

Double Birthday Shout Out To Josephine and Lowell!

Two of my fave people in our community are celebrating birthdays today, and I'm not letting this date pass without giving both of them the TransGriot birthday treatment they deserve

Since beauty and wisdom goes first, my first birthday shout out goes to Josephine Tittsworth.  

I've known her for over a decade, am proud to call this fellow Cougar my friend, and she has done much to help advance the cause of trans human rights in Texas and across the nation..

And oh yeah, happy birthday Jo!

She's the creative force behind the two day Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summits that I've been reporting from for the last three years.

The TTNS not only helps focus attention on getting trans friendly non-discrimination policies enacted at Texas colleges and universities and school districts, it also has trans related policy discussions, keynote speakers and programming about our lives.

And oh yeah, I can't forget to mention the TTNS chocolate break.

Since the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit started in 2009 it has grown to become an event coveted by area universities to host.  Josephine has the vision and desire to not only take it statewide, but wants to host it someday on one of our Texas HBCU campuses.

The other person I'm giving a TransGriot birthday shoutout is Lowell Kane.  I met this handsome Aggie during the 2010 TTNS that was held on the Rice University campus along with a few of his Aggie students in his capacity as the coordinator of the LGBT Center on Texas A&M's campus that he helped found in 2007. 

The campus climate toward LGBT students improved dramatically on the A&M campus during his time there and he's now moved on to become the founding director of the new LGBTQ Center on the Purdue University campus.

He's now busy in the Hoosier state building their LGBTQ center and I have little doubt he'll have the same success up there that he did at Aggieland.

We already miss him in the Houston area (and so do I), but our loss was Purdue's gain.   At least they sell Blue Bell ice cream in West Lafayette to go with that cake he gets to eat for his big 3-0 birthday.

Happy birthday to both of you.   Love you both, thanks for all you do on behalf of our rainbow community, may you have continued success in your personal and professional lives and may you continue to celebrate many more birthdays to come. 

Goodbye, Lowell

After five years as the coordinator for the LGBT Center at Texas A&M, Lowell Kane is leaving Aggieland and headed to Purdue University.  I along with my Aggie rainbow family and the Houston area rainbow community are sad to see him go.  

I met him and some of the LGBT Aggies back in 2010 when I attended my first Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit at Rice University mere weeks after I'd moved back home. 

It led to Texas A&M being one of the first schools inside the Lone Star State I had the honor of speaking at post return home in November 2010 and me getting to spend some quality time on its campus with him and some of the wonderful students there.

While at Texas A&M, Kane received several awards, including the Diversity Service Award and the Phyllis R. Frye Advocacy Award. During his time as program coordinator, the Aggieland campus climate toward the GLBT community improved, according to the LGBT Friendly  Campus Climate Index.

He was also one of the founding members of the now thriving LGBT Center on the Texas A&M campus, a first of its kind program for a Texas college campus and he was named its Program Coordinator in 2007.

It was so successful conservafool state Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center) tried to kill it during the 2011 legislative session  by starving LGBT centers of funding and banning their housing in state owned buildings.  The Texas House Democrats made him back off by threatening to scuttle the entire school financing bill if he persisted in his phobic lunacy. 

When he gets to Purdue he'll have a similar situation to the one he encountered when he arrived in College Station in 2007 in terms of no GLBT center or full time staff devoted to advocacy work on behalf of that student population but Kane is relishing the challenge.

“I did it here, and I know that I can do it there,” Kane said in an interview in the Batallion. “In fact, I’m going to be more informed because I’ve had five years of wonderful experience here at Texas A&M that I’m going bring with me to Purdue.” 

There will be a farewell event for Kane on the A&M campus starting at 3:30 PM today at the LGBT Center in Cain Hall's POD (B111) that I sadly can't attend, but best of luck to you Lowell in your new position. 

For you folks at Purdue who read this blog, you're about to get one fantastic person headed your way and one we're sorry our community is losing and are definitely going to miss.

Whoop! Texas A&M Student Senate Passes Inclusive Non-Discrimination Policy

My rainbow family at Texas A&M had a trial and tribulation filled 2010-11 school year in which they had to deal with homophobes in their student government, Texas GOP state legislator Wayne Christian (R-Center) trying to attach amendments to the state budget bill that sought to ban all LGBT centers on college campuses or eliminate their funding that had the backing of the Texas A&M Student Senate, and deafening silence from the TAMU administration as all of this drama was going on. 

But there was some good news coming out of College Station last night as the Texas A&M Student Senate passed an inclusive non-discrimination policy that covers sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

Whoop!   I guess the homophobic student senators either graduated or got booted out of office.

Congrats to my Aggie rainbow family, Andrew Jancaric and everyone who worked tirelessly to make that policy a reality.  As you, Lowell and other Aggies have consistently said and role modeled through your actions, hate is not an Aggie value.

Hopefully the knuckleheads on your beautiful campus who think it is will be reminded of that point if they attempt to ignore the new policy that makes it crystal clear.