The state of Texas has spent 2022 demonizing and attacking LGBTQ people. Whipping up a moral panic with hate speech pulled from corporate media headlines, Texas politicians have introduced dozens of bills criminalizing transgender people. This in turn has led to a steep increase in attacks against LGBTQ people.
But even as the attacks increase, popular movements have shut down the fascists in major cities and small towns alike, often greatly outnumbering them. There is still a long road ahead for Texas anti-fascists, but a few powerful victories give reason for hope.
Hate speech paved the way for fascist violence
The national panic around LGBTQ existence is not an accident, but a coordinated campaign with political ends. Anti-trans and anti-gay hate speech has proliferated across the media. Fox News ran 170 segmentsattacking trans people in a three-week period between March 17 and April 6.
Far-right rhetoric against trans people has now spilled over into a full-blown homophobic assault, often dovetailing with racism, sexism and anti-semitism.
This has corresponded with Republican legislators adopting and advocating for these same extreme positions. The Texas Republican Party platform, adopted in June 2022 — right in the middle of Pride Month, no less — declares that “[h]omosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice,” and that they oppose “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”
Only the people can stop fascism
LGBTQ Texans will ring in the New Year in a state trying to criminalize every aspect of queer existence. Right-wing politicians, working hand-in-hand with openly bigoted media, have created a hostile legal atmosphere for trans people. But the third prong of this assault, the mobilized fascist militias, have met fierce resistance in every corner of the state.
There is nothing settled about the fight for trans rights in Texas. The consciousness of the state has shifted to the left in recent years, even as the state government has shifted even more to the far right. Texas has been singled out for fascist attacks on LGBTQ people not because its right-wing government is so powerful, but precisely because its form of extreme class rule is so unstable and unpopular.