Texas AG Ken Paxton requested list of transgender residents from Department of Public Safety

In a move LGTBTQ+ advocates said could be used to further target transgender Texans, Attorney General Ken Paxton in June sought to collect a list of people who changed their gender on their state driver’s license, the Washington Post reports.

According to the bombshell story posted Wednesday, Paxton’s office asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide information on people who changed their sex on state documents over the past two years. “We won’t need [driver’s license or identification numbers] at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents,” according to correspondence sent but the AG’s office.

The Post obtained communication between the AG’s office and DPS through a public records request.

DPS never fulfilled the AG office’s request, according to the newspaper. After the department identified 16,000 such record changes, officials determined that staffers would need to undertake a manual search to know why the changes were made.

“A verbal request was received,” DPS spokesman Travis Considine told the Post  via email. “Ultimately, our team advised the AG’s office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced. Thus, no data of any kind was provided.”

Paxton made his request amid a push by Texas Republicans to target transgender people that included both Gov. Greg Abbott, a Paxton ally.

In February, Abbott ordered state workers to investigate the parents of transgender children for child abuse. The governor justified that request using a non-binding opinion from Paxton’s office classifying gender-affirming care for minors as child abuse.

Coming soon: SA Current Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting San Antonio stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

This article appears in Dec 14-27, 2022.