As early voting got underway in Texas this week, slick mass-mailed flyers from a purported “Texas Transgender Student Union” began appearing in mailboxes all over Texas. SPOILER: There’s no such group. The flyers are part of an attempted ratfucking operation aimed at whipping up rightwing anger in hopes of boosting Republican turnout. It probably violates election laws by hiding the identity of the senders, but whoever’s running the operation has enough money to send hundreds of thousands of professionally produced mailings, so a little FEC fine may simply be part of their dirty business plan, if they’re caught. (They will eventually be exposed. Prosecution may be another matter, because Texas.)
The mailings appear to have been targeted to neighborhoods that tend to vote Republican, although anecdotally, many Democratic voters received the flyers, too. The flyers were addressed to “Students of the _____ Family,” and bore a great big trans flag on the return address. Here’s a typical example:
The flyers were pretty slick and professional-looking, and even included language typical of groups that offer support to trans kids, because whoever made the flyers swiped much of the text from the website of a real nonprofit, the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), and made sure to include lots of links to the group’s website. The mass mailings came a week after a flurry of fake text messages urged recipients to seek information on gender-affirming healthcare and about “bathrooms and beyond for trans kids at school,” and also linked to webpages on TENT. Since the appearance of the mailers, TENT has temporarily limited its website to a brief statement explaining it has nothing to do with the flyers and condemning the fakery, while pledging to keep providing “unequivocal support for trans Texans, their families, and their loved ones.”
The pirated content was carefully selected to reinforce the rightwing myth that LGBTQ+ organizations are out to steal nice Christian children and somehow brainwash them into becoming transgender, which is not how it works. Especially upsetting to many of the people who got the flyer was a section on “What to do if your parents don’t support you,” followed by a text box explaining how to become emancipated if you’re 17 and self-supporting. Another section discusses options for seeking medical or legal help, including (gasp!) outside of Texas.
See? It’s all a plot to destroy families and tell young people to run away and get transed!!! Here’s the business side of the four-fold pamphlet:
![Screenshot of Texas mailer. Text in panel 1 'If you're trans, nonbinary, or questioning and your family, school, or community isn't supportive, YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT BY YOURSELF. This guide is a starting point for finding supportive people, youth programs, legal information, and community. Important: Laws and programs can change quickly. Always confirm current rules and eligibility directly with the organization' Beneath that is a photo of a protest sign with the trans flag and the slogan 'trans rights are human rights.' Panel 2 text: 'WHAT TO DO IF YOUR PARENTS DON'T SUPPORT YOU First: You deserve support even if parents don't understand or agree h you. But if you're under 18, here's what you can do: FIND A SAFE ADULT This could be: A trusted teacher, Counselor Relative, Friend's parent, Therapist, Youth organization staff member. TALK TO A YOUTH ORGANIZATION Start with [group names not transcribed]' In a blue text box: 'What if I want to be emancipated?' Texas law generally allows a minor to petition for emancipation if they are: 17, OR at least 16 and living separately from their parents AND they must be self-supporting and managing their own financial affairs. The court also has to determine that emancipation is in the minor's best interest. Texas Law Help explains the process here' [URL not included] Panel 3: 'WANT TO KNOW k HORMONES OR GE!! AFFIRMING CARE? Lots of students are going through the same process you are. Find a trusted organization to help, rather than trying to find medication yourself. They can help you understand the current Texas rules and connect you with appropriate legal, healthcare, and support resources. CAN I GO OUT OF STATE FOR CARE? If you're under 18, parental consent, custody, and the laws of both states can matter. If you're considering out-of-state care, talk to a legal organization first rather than trying to arrange it yourself. Good places to start: TENT; Lambda Legal Help Desk; ACLU of Texas [URLs not transcribed]' Panel 4: Top: Photo of a table with various items including a t-shirt reading 'trans texas proud,' 2 postcards with supportive statements like 'you are beautiful and you deserve all good things. Keep your head up. The universe loves you' and 'you are loved. be who you are' Text: 'ONE FINAL THING You don't need to have everything figured out. You don't have to know whether you're definitely trans. You don't have to decide about hormones or surgery right now. You don't have to convince your parents. Your job right now is to stay safe, find people who will listen to you, and give yourself time to figure out who you are. There are other kids in Texas going through this too — and there are adults whose actual job is to help you. Even if your family doesn't accept you as you are, groups like these are ready to become your found family.'](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wQUt!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F65bfa84e-aac6-428a-8aa2-bdd2289ee886_1500x854.jpeg "Screenshot of Texas mailer. Text in panel 1 'If you're trans, nonbinary, or questioning and your family, school, or community isn't supportive, YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT BY YOURSELF. This guide is a starting point for finding supportive people, youth programs, legal information, and community. Important: Laws and programs can change quickly. Always confirm current rules and eligibility directly with the organization' Beneath that is a photo of a protest sign with the trans flag and the slogan 'trans rights are human rights.' Panel 2 text: 'WHAT TO DO IF YOUR PARENTS DON'T SUPPORT YOU First: You deserve support even if parents don't understand or agree h you. But if you're under 18, here's what you can do: FIND A SAFE ADULT This could be: A trusted teacher, Counselor Relative, Friend's parent, Therapist, Youth organization staff member. TALK TO A YOUTH ORGANIZATION Start with [group names not transcribed]' In a blue text box: 'What if I want to be emancipated?' Texas law generally allows a minor to petition for emancipation if they are: 17, OR at least 16 and living separately from their parents AND they must be self-supporting and managing their own financial affairs. The court also has to determine that emancipation is in the minor's best interest. Texas Law Help explains the process here' [URL not included] Panel 3: 'WANT TO KNOW k HORMONES OR GE!! AFFIRMING CARE? Lots of students are going through the same process you are. Find a trusted organization to help, rather than trying to find medication yourself. They can help you understand the current Texas rules and connect you with appropriate legal, healthcare, and support resources. CAN I GO OUT OF STATE FOR CARE? If you're under 18, parental consent, custody, and the laws of both states can matter. If you're considering out-of-state care, talk to a legal organization first rather than trying to arrange it yourself. Good places to start: TENT; Lambda Legal Help Desk; ACLU of Texas [URLs not transcribed]' Panel 4: Top: Photo of a table with various items including a t-shirt reading 'trans texas proud,' 2 postcards with supportive statements like 'you are beautiful and you deserve all good things. Keep your head up. The universe loves you' and 'you are loved. be who you are' Text: 'ONE FINAL THING You don't need to have everything figured out. You don't have to know whether you're definitely trans. You don't have to decide about hormones or surgery right now. You don't have to convince your parents. Your job right now is to stay safe, find people who will listen to you, and give yourself time to figure out who you are. There are other kids in Texas going through this too — and there are adults whose actual job is to help you. Even if your family doesn't accept you as you are, groups like these are ready to become your found family.'")
The first disgusting thing here is that a simple, supportive statement like “Your job right now is to stay safe, find people who will listen to you, and give yourself time to figure out who you are” is being read by transphobes as a suggestion that kids must reject their parents and go seek a found family elsewhere.
The second, really disgusting thing is that by mailing this ratfuckery directly to homes all over Texas, the senders just might get trans kids beaten or worse. LGBTQ+ teens have a heightened risk being abandoned or subjected to violence by parents who refuse to accept them, and it’s not unthinkable that this mailer reached at least a few parents who are primed to explode at the idea that their teenager asked to receive it.
Well short of such nightmare scenarios, of course, it’s just a really scummy way to exploit rightwing fears in an attempt to overcome low Republican interest in voting. So where the hell did this fucking thing come from, anyway?
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So far, while the senders of the faked pamphlets have yet to be identified, it’s clear they have far better financial resources than any real LGBTQ+ groups. The return address on the mailer doesn’t exist, but whoever’s running the scam was clever enough to make the fictitious office address similar to TENT’s real mailing address in a UPS store. And for the sake of doing some back-of-the junk mail math, the Concho Observer played around with some online bulk mail sites and estimated that to send a “full-color, 2-sided A4 mailer to every household in Texas would cost somewhere between $3 million and $4.4 million,” although it appears the senders were a bit more selective, concentrating mostly on likely Republican neighborhoods.
While there’s no such group as the “Texas Transgender Student Union,” Texas Monthly reporter Steven Monacelli discovered that a front group with that name was established in Wyoming on September 2. Wyoming is conveniently among the few states where LLCs don’t have to disclose their real owners or managers to state regulators. Monacelli also found that the “registered agent” for the LLC — the go-between who does the paperwork — operates out of a Sheridan address that’s frequently used by scammers — but also some legit businesses. Isn’t capitalism wonderful?
And as it happens, two employees of the invaluable Texas Tribune also received the mailer, which was helpful, because an ID on those two pamphlets
was associated with Maryland-based mail tracking company SnailWorks, according to a U.S. Postal Service employee who searched the IDs provided by the Tribune. SnailWorks’ services include political mail tracking to help coordinate campaign material disbursement, according to its website.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has paid Snailworks a total of $57,300 for “list rental” over the past two years, according to a Federal Election Commission search of campaign finance reports.
Gosh, that’s quite the coincidence! Snailworks didn’t have anything to say to the Tribune.
The backlash from rightwing flying monkey brigades was swift, with hatemongers like Chaya Raichik (“Libs of TikTok”) happily amplifying the false flag. “A radical LGBTQ organization is mailing pamphlets to CHILDREN, encouraging them to cut off their parents and leave the state so they can get g*nital mutilation surgeries,” Raichik wrote, adding in an update that “these pamphlets have been sent to families with children as young as THREE YEARS OLD. Absolutely disgusting.”
Maybe it is bad that the undisclosed GOP operatives did that, although we’re pretty sure three-year-olds tend not to read political junk mail.
And in an interesting wrinkle, the Texas Tribune points out that while much of the mailer’s content is copied from TENT’s online information, the inflammatory bit suggesting that kids seek emancipation is a notable exception.
TENT’s online materials do not promote or offer guidance to LGBTQ+ youth on seeking emancipation. The group’s resources primarily provide information on how to interact with state laws restricting bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth and prohibitions on certain school groups, as well as guidance on how parents of transgender children should interact with Child Protective Services.
We’re sure that more will come to light about the attempted ratfuck; plenty of people on Twitter have pointed out that the trillionaire owner of that hellsite certainly has the resources to pour into a disinformation campaign, and has been throwing a ton of money at midterm races. What’s more, the Nazi-saluting eugenics-obsessed fuck also considers his transgender daughter Vivian dead to him, “killed by the woke mind virus,” so an anti-trans election operation might appeal to him. We are of course only speculating.
Or maybe it’s some hateful shithead we’ve never heard of. The one potential culprit we can probably rule out is Roger Stone. After all, this was a fairly complicated scheme that has so far worked as planned.
Less than two weeks, folks. Stay alert and safe.
[Texas Tribune / Houston Chronicle / Concho Observer]
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Also also, another hilarious bit of fallout from both the mass mailing and the incessant ads attacking James Talarico for wanting to "trans your kids" is that a subset of Texas Republicans are now mad at Paxton and at whoever sent the flyers, since their kids are asking questions about trans stuff
"The second, really disgusting thing is that by mailing this ratfuckery directly to homes all over Texas, the senders just might get trans kids beaten or worse"
Holy shit--we're going to end up with more homeless teens, aren't we?
FUCK YOU, TROLLS.