School Official in Suit Against Obama Trans Guidance: ‘I Don’t Believe in the Term Transgender’

Superintendent of Tiny Texas District: ‘If People Can’t Decide What Gender They Are, They Have to Explore That on Their Own’

While some leading opponents of transgender rights have attempted to sugar-coat their bigotry, one Texas school official has provided a refreshingly honest explanation of the underlying belief that’s fueling the right wing’s so-called “bathroom wars.” 

David Thweatt is superintendent of the tiny Harrold school district, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit brought by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — along with officials from 10 other states — against the Obama administration’s recent guidance explaining why public schools need to allow trans students to use restrooms based on gender identity. 

Texas GOP leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, maintain their opposition to the directive has nothing to do with prejudice against trans people. Rather, they say they’re concerned about sexual predators taking advantage of the policy by pretending to be female to gain access to women’s restrooms. 

However, given the total lack of evidence to justify such fears, perhaps Thweatt’s explanation makes more sense.  

“I don’t believe in the term transgender,” Thweatt told The Times Record-News of nearby Wichita Falls, Texas, for a story published over the weekend. 

In other words, Thweatt is like a flat-earther who simply chooses to reject scientific reality, and in this case, the medical reality of gender dysphoria — which has been recognized by the American Psychological Association since 1980. According to Thweatt, people who think they’re trans are simply confused. 

“If people can’t decide what gender they are, they have to explore that on their own,” he told the newspaper. 

Thweatt also acknowledged that Paxton’s office provided the district with the policy that would serve as the basis for the lawsuit.

“They had a written policy. We worked together and fine-tuned it,” he said. “Policies are written by attorneys. … That is just normal.”

Paxton’s office had shopped the policy — and the associated lawsuit — to other districts before it found a willing participant in the Harrold school district, according to a recent report in The Texas Tribune. And Paxton’s plaintiff-trolling reportedly was geographically targeted in the district of a federal judge who’s a known opponent of LGBT rights. 

Judge Reed O’Connor, who’ll preside over the case, ruled early last year — in a lawsuit that was also brought by Paxton’s office against the federal government — that gay workers couldn’t take unpaid Family Medical Leave to care for their sick spouses.  

Here’s Harrold ISD superintendent David Thweatt discussing the Obama transgender guidance:

 

Image: Screenshot via The Dallas Morning News/YouTube