West Texas DA opens forgery probe into transgender mailers
A Republican district attorney in West Texas has opened a criminal investigation into pamphlets mailed to homes across Texas purporting to come from a transgender rights organization.
Sarah Stogner, district attorney for Loving, Reeves and Ward counties west of Odessa, told The Texas Tribune that her office is investigating the mailers as a potential forgery but said the scope could expand as new information comes in. Forgery is a state jail felony under Texas law.
Stogner said she felt the mailers — which were marketed as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ students from the Texas Transgender Student Union, a group recently formed in Wyoming — were an obvious bid to agitate voters ahead of the November midterm elections.
“If this ends up being legal, it is everything that is wrong with our current political climate,” Stogner said.
The origin of the mailers is currently unknown, Stogner said. The student union listed as the sender was formed as a limited liability company in Wyoming in September, records show. The group’s address on the mailer was listed as a Houston-area post office box.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/10/22/texas-transgender-pamphlet-da-investigation/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
9 replies
The group already said it was not them
It might be a psy op to convey the "the
Jewstrannies are coming for your kids!" point they keep hammering on. How else will they justify expanding the camps?As a non-Texan can someone explain what is happening? Is anyone trying to send misleading information to LGBTQIA+ students? Or is this all about falsely associating a group with pamphlets and other communications that seem to be deemed illegal?
It's not that it would be illegal. In theory, there's nothing illegal about trans support groups sending mailers like this to every house in a state. Actual trans groups don't do this because we're fucking stupid. LGBT groups always operate on a model of "you come to us, we don't come to you." Trans groups don't run literal recruitment campaigns.
If actual trans groups did this, the political backlash would be immense. You start "messing with" people in their homes, reaching out directly to their children? If an actual trans group did this, they would be politically suicidal.
The allegation is that some third party is misrepresenting the actual work of trans activists. They produce a pamphlet that has actual information and resources in it. But this is the kind of information normally given out as pamphlets in groups and queer centers. You normally have to go looking for it. Or on a website that is explicitly trans or queer. The allegation is that they produced a pamphlet of true information but then used it in ways actual trans people never would. I'm not sure how specifically that maps to criminal fraud law, but it might relate to some statute involving undue influence on elections.
The conservative fasly claim is that LGBT (especially the T) are child predators. So, I'm betting this is to further whip the MAGAts into a frenzy.
I understand that part but what does the fraud have to do with this? I’m not understanding that.
The pamphlets were designed to appear to come from a actual group, Transgender Education Network of Texas. The group says they did not send them and that the flyers include information that TENT does not support, information that is clearly intended to outrage conservative voters. That's fraud.
It was fraudulently distributed to whip the people into a hate-fueled craze about transgender people so they turn out to vote? Attacking trans people is like catnip to these people.
It's likely not only not a trans group but it's incorporated in Wyoming and the flyers have an address in Texas. Pretty sketchy. If I blanketed my neighborhood with flyers for the California Fascist Party it would create the impression there was a California Fascist Party. And if I endorsed a Yes vote on certain judges (who usually run nonpartisan and with very little advertising, they're appointed by a governor but have to be pre-approved by voters periodically) I bet people would vote No on them. Just as I vote against anything endorsed by Howard Jarvis.