Affirm Life, Not Erasure: Punishing Education Policy and the Dehumanization of Trans Youth in Texas by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Affirm Life, Not Erasure: Punishing Education Policy and the Dehumanization of Trans Youth in Texas

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Under the cover of darkness, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Texas Legislature pushed through House Bill 229—a bill that erases complexity, ignores science, and imposes a rigid, biologically reductionist definition of sex based solely on reproductive capacity. This isn’t about governance—it’s about control. HB 229 mandates that every state agency flatten Texans’ identities into one of two state-sanctioned boxes: “male” or “female,” no nuance, no exception, no humanity. Let us be clear: this is state-enforced erasure masquerading as policy.

It explicitly denies the existence of transgender and intersex people, treating them as legal fictions rather than as human beings worthy of dignity and protection. This is not a neutral administrative decision—it’s state-sanctioned erasure. And it has devastating consequences.

Source: Tx Tribune https://tinyurl.com/5h7sxczu

Let’s be honest about what’s at stake. We are talking about young people—transgender and nonbinary youth—whose very lives hang in the balance when their identities are denied or erased. According to The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey, nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide in the past year alone. 

That number should stop us in our tracks. And the data is even more harrowing when we look at the role of affirmation: youth whose pronouns were not respected by those around them attempted suicide at more than twice the rate of those whose identities were affirmed (The Trevor Project, 2022; Borge, 2020; Christensen, 2023). This isn’t theoretical. It’s not about political posturing. It’s about creating the conditions for young people to live, to thrive, and to know they belong. Denial is not neutral. It’s deadly.

And yet, this bill dares to claim that “separate is not inherently unequal,” invoking the very language that upheld racial segregation in the Jim Crow era. It claims to protect women and girls by reducing them to biology, as if equality requires exclusion, and as if safety comes from stigmatizing others rather than addressing the root causes of violence. This is not about safeguarding anyone—it’s about tightening the grip of ideological conformity and silencing difference.

Let us not pretend this is benign. It is a policy of fear, not care. It is an assault on public integrity, not an act of protection. And it will cost lives—not metaphorically, but literally—by reinforcing a culture that tells LGBTQ youth that they do not belong.

We have a duty to speak up, not only because we are educators and advocates, but because we are human beings. H.B. 229 is not just bad policy. It is a moral failure.

—Angela Valenzuela

References

Borge, J. (2020, July 31). 2 in 5 LGBTQ youth have ‘seriously considered’ suicide in the past year—Here’s how to help. Well+Good. https://www.wellandgood.com/lgbtq-youth-suicide-mental-health/

Christensen, J. (2023, June 28). Transgender people face significantly higher suicide risk, Danish study finds. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/28/health/transgender-suicide-risk-danish-study/index.html

Czopek, M. (2022, May 11). Why it’s not ‘grooming’: What research says about gender and sexuality in schools, PolitiFact. https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/11/why-its-not-grooming-what-research-says-about-gend/

The Trevor Project. (2022). 2022 national survey on LGBTQ youth mental health. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/