GOP Candidate Wishes Kids Could Bully Transgender Students

Former teacher says the quiet part out loud

Former teacher complains about her students getting in trouble for bullying trans kids

Talk about cultures wars heating up! A former teacher and GOP candidate for the Texas House of Representatives just said openly that transgender kids make her uncomfortable, complaining in a speech to supporters that kids in her class got in trouble for bullying trans students. She made clear to an approving crowd that kids ought to be allowed to laugh at trans students.

Don’t believe me? What this video. It’s beyond shocking.

Watch Luther take a couple steps back as she realizes she just said the quiet part out loud. Watch her regain her poise and continue her anti-LGBTQ rant, which she defends by noting her district is part of the Bible Belt, implying that Christians ought to be able to make fun of queer people.

What an odd view of Christianity.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Luther’s campaign funding comes primarily from two “religious liberty” PACs, Defend Texas Liberty, and Texas Defending Liberty, both of which regularly push for state laws to allow Christians to discriminate against or deny services to LGBTQ people.

Racists often walk hand in hand with anti-LGBTQ bigots. Luther is no exception. Another of her campaign priorities is that Texas universities should deny admittance to Chinese students. Oh, and she was sentenced to jail in 2020 for operating her Dallas salon in defiance of public health orders at the height of the covid19 crisis.

Luther doesn’t seem to know much about transgender people

On her campaign web site, she calls for abolishing “Gender Mutilation in Children,” claiming chemically or surgically “castrating” children is legal in Texas and ruing that legislators refused last year to outlaw it. What scaremongering nonsense. A Texas bill to that effect died in committee last year, but only because medical associations pointed out that they already prohibit gender-affirming surgeries in children and that none are performed, in Texas or anywhere else in the U.S.

But she knows how to scaremonger

Luther’s campaign web site is a laundry list of fear. It’s mostly about who to be afraid of or who to hate — LGBTQ people, Mexican immigrants, Chinese people, women who choose abortion, and Black people demanding easier access to voting.

She opposes Texas property taxes on the grounds that people who don’t have children shouldn’t have to help fund public schools. Is selfishness a Christian value now?

And just in case Texans feel threatened by the people Luther is afraid of, she’s calling for legal concealed carry of firearms without permits or background checks. That’s really a Texas GOP thing. It was debated seriously last year in the Texas House, but did not pass.

Luther is polling very well

Her anti-trans bullying speech got some negative press, mostly from the Houston Chronicle, but her supporters aren’t upset with her. I don’t think she intended to speak so plainly about wanting kids to be allowed to laugh at trans students. You can see on her face and read from the backward steps she took that she knew she’d been too honest, that her mask had slipped.

But her poll numbers haven’t slipped. She fed her base red meat, and they’re eating it up.

LGBTQ kids are once again in the crosshairs

I saw the video of Luther’s speech after the Houston Chronicle tweeted it and immediately called my editor at the LA Blade. “Jesus!” I said, “What is this person doing? Doesn’t she know that LGBTQ kids in Texas are calling Trevor Project in unprecedented numbers, suffering because Texas politicians are making them scapegoats? And now she’s openly calling on kids to laugh at trans students? What the hell is wrong with her?”

He reached out to Equality Texas, whose CEO Ricardo Martinez spent several years with the LGBTQ youth advocacy group GLSEN. Martinez wrote the following for the Blade, in an editorial I wish Luther and her supporters would pay attention to:

It is important for all our kids, regardless of race, class, genders, sexual orientation, or ability, to feel a sense of belonging in school so they can focus on academic success. It is our duty to ensure this goal is realized. Lamenting not being able to allow students to laugh at, bully and harass transgender kids isn’t leadership, it’s cruelty plain and simple and has real life consequences.

Martinez goes on to point out that over 50% of LGBTQ kids in middle and high school report significant bullying that results in serious educational and mental health problems. He calls on politicians to stop exploiting LGBTQ youth in order to score points and win elections.

I join Martinez in his simple, civilized request

Mocking children cannot be, despite Shelly Luther’s assertion to the contrary, a Christian value that’s acceptable in the Bible Belt. Mocking LGBTQ children must not be a tool adults use to seek or exercise political power.

I should not have to say that, but with conservative politicians increasingly saying the quiet, hateful parts out loud, I guess I really have to.

Who will join me? Who will call for end to fearmongering and anti-LGBTQ hatred?

James Finn is a columnist for the LA Blade, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, and an “agented” but unpublished novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].

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