Texas Union Organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons To Anti-Trans Dem State Rep: GTFO.

It's a solid D district, so congrats state Rep. almost-elect Simmons!

Lauren Ashley Simmons. Photo: Facebook

In a serious win for LGBTQ+ rights in a state where they’re under attack, 36-year-old union organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons beat four-term incumbent state Rep. Shawn Thierry in Texas’s Democratic primary runoff Tuesday. Thierry had angered Democrats last year by voting with Republicans to ban gender-affirming care for minors, as well as another vote in favor of a GOP-sponsored book-banning bill that would remove “sexually explicit” books from school libraries, which everyone understood was an excuse to censor books mentioning the existence of LGBTQ+ people. (And also the unofficial Texas State Novel, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove.)

Simmons almost won the March primary in a three-way race, coming within 100 votes of getting an outright majority; voters overwhelmingly chose Simmons in Tuesday’s runoff, by 65 percent to 35 percent.

It was the first time Thierry had faced a serious primary challenge in her Houston-area Democratic district since being elected to the state House in 2016. Given the heavy Democratic registration in the district, the winner of the Dem primary is almost guaranteed a win in November’s general election.

In her victory speech Tuesday, Simmons exclaimed “We did it, y'all” and told her supporters she “wanted to be a clear example of what you can do when you have the power of the people behind you.”

As Erin Reed explains, Thierry won herself a primary challenge in May 2023, when she sided with Republicans and voted to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.

In doing so, she spoke on the House floor, calling transgender girls “biological males” and arguing that conversion therapy was the true solution to gender dysphoria. She also voted against every amendment intended to mitigate the harm the bill would cause transgender youth in the state. This led to a vote to censure Thierry by the Meyerland Area Democrats, who reported feeling betrayed by her earlier assurances that she was an ally to the LGBTQ+ community.

Simmons, a queer labor organizer and mom who also fought Gov. Greg Abbott’s takeover of Houston’s public schools, declared her candidacy not long after, saying in her announcement that Thierry had “lost her way and now votes with Greg Abbott and Republicans to take away our rights, destroy our public schools, and hurt our kids.” If you have a couple minutes, do watch this August 2023 video of Simmons reading Mike Miles, Abbott’s hand-picked superintendent, for filth, as the kids say.

Statewide Democrats and Dem-supporting groups wasted no time endorsing Simmons, a pretty unusual move in a primary where a well-established party veteran is running, but not surprising given the sense of betrayal following Thierry’s votes and vocal opposition to basic decency for LGBTQ+ folks. In addition to support from every LGBTQ+ group you can think of — fine, you in the back, not Log Cabin Republicans — Simmons was endorsed by unions like the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO, and the Service Employees International Union. Congresswomen Jasmine Crockett and Lizzie Fletcher supported Simmons, as did Beto O’Rourke.

Reed notes that Thierry doubled down on the anti-trans crap during the campaign:

She participated in "faith walks" with major local churches supportive of her stance and relied heavily on Republican donations. When asked about her anti-trans votes, she called gender-affirming care "Black genocide."

Thierry also was quoted in a February Houston Chronicle editorial describing Simmons’s supporters as “the gay ones,” although Thierry claimed in a now-deleted tweet that the comment was “taken completely out of context from a larger discussion,” so we’re sure there was a perfectly cromulent context that would make the comment just fine.

In a message to supporters after her win, Simmons wrote,

“Thanks to your amazing support, we all won BIG last night! We are so grateful, and so proud of the strong message this decisive victory sends to those who seek political gain by using bigotry, hatred, and fear: STOP. Thank you!”

Simmons still has to face a Republican, Lance York, in the general election, but her state House district went for Joe Biden by just short of 80 percentage points in 2020, so while people do need to get out do that again this fall, Simmons probably has a fighting chance.

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PREVIOUSLY!

Houston Schools' Texas-Imposed 'High Quality' Curriculum Is Crap With A Capital CRAP

Texas Wingnut Says Dirty Book Ban Would Include 'Lonesome Dove.' Not A Good Move In Texas.

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[Texas Tribune / Houston Chronicle (gift link) / Erin in the Morning]

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