The Dallas Morning News reports:

Republicans in the Legislature filed more than 80 bills that would affect LGBTQ Texans, including many focused on public schools that would impact students, teachers and staff. Republican lawmakers filed a range of bills to ban teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, limit the ability of teachers and students to discuss sex and gender outside the classroom, outlaw support for gender transitions and protect employees who refer to transgender students by their biological sex.

“Sexual orientation and gender identity policies, they’re not about allowing people to learn and live as they choose,” said Jonathan Covey, policy director of Texas Values. “They’re used in a coercive way to force those people who don’t agree with them to go along with a radical ideology, and schools are actually a major front in this campaign.” One bill proposes a ban on human sexuality instruction from pre-K through eighth grade. Others would ban such instruction from pre-K through 12th grade.

Read the full article. The piece goes on to quote a survey showing that 40% of Texas LGBTQ youth have considered suicide in the last year. Texas Republicans surely consider that a good thing. Photo: Rep. Steve Toth, author of several bills cited in the article.