Brandon Hall and his wife Ashley

Candidate for state rep targets LGBTQ nonprofit in Parker County

CAROLINE SAVOIE | Contributing Writer
CaroSavoWrites@gmail.com

When Tina Biffle started an LGBTQ community organization on Facebook in 2019, she was trying to fill a gap in LGBTQ outreach in Parker County. She didn’t know then that Parker County LGBTQ+ Awareness Community — P.L.A.C. — would be targeted by the political campaign for Brandon Hall, a Republican running for state representative in Texas House District 60.

But when Biffle and P.L.A.C. started advertising a youth and family group that met the last week in September, Hall took to his own Facebook page to rally his supporters against the program and its organizers.

On Sep. 9, Hall posted screenshots of advertisements for The Crossing P.L.A.C., a youth and family group for sixth through 12th graders, and P.L.A.C.’s Transformation Station, a LGBTQ-affirming community closet.

“P.L.A.C. is a group right here in Parker County targeting children with their sexual agenda,” Hall wrote. “Their website is alarming. They are peddling ‘chest binders’ to underage girls for free at their ‘transformation station’ (brutal, cruel, and disgusting), and they are starting a local youth group dedicated to grooming children. Nobody will work harder to stop these people from getting to children than I will. Let’s rise up and take a stand!”

Biffle said Hall’s attacks on the group mischaracterize P.L.A.C.’s efforts. The non-profit’s three-person board only puts programs in place when there’s a direct need from the community, she said, adding that before P.L.A.C. got its nonprofit certification, people were asking where to find free chest binders or try on clothes in a safe space for transgender folks.

“The Transformation Station was born out of a growing need for LGBTQ-inclusionary clothing,” Biffle said. “We don’t cater to children, and we only offer adult clothing. But we do see teenagers come in on occasion.”

Biffle said P.L.A.C. accepts clothing donations, and the store is open to anyone in the community who might not feel comfortable shopping in traditional spaces. While the organization doesn’t have a program specifically tailored to chest-binding, it does accept binder donations, and it does work to educate those who are interested in safe binding practices.

“We don’t allow anyone to take a binder if they can’t safely use it,” Biffle said. “We always discuss the maximum time to wear it safely; we only take certain types of binders that are safe, and we give their parents the names of websites for research on safe binding practices.”

Hall cited a statistic on his Facebook page noting the health risks involved in wearing binders, and Biffle acknowledged there are health risks involved in wearing any compression clothing. But, she pointed out, girls and women who wear compression sports bras face the same risks to their breast tissue as do transgender and nonbinary folks who wear binders.

Turah Shaver, P.L.A.C.’s vice president and board member, said the goal of the volunteers at Transformation Station is to educate the community.

“We want to provide the right education and give these people their best chance at feeling and being safe in clothes that make them comfortable,” Shaver said. “If you’re buying binders from Amazon, you’re not getting the same level of education that you get with us.”

Biffle added that access to free binders stops people from using harmful practices like duct tape or injury wraps to hide their chests.
Referrals to the closet have come from other community members’ recommendations, Biffle said, noting that she’s working with Weatherford’s police department and local teachers to inform them about the services P.L.A.C. provides.

The Crossing P.L.A.C., Biffle said, grew from a need for an LGBTQ support group. She said another community organization started a group that served the same function, but that organization got donations from affluent, right-leaning churches. When the churches pushed back and said they’d take funding away if the organization didn’t shut down its LGBTQ support group, the organization asked P.L.A.C. to fill this need instead.

P.L.A.C. held its first event on Sep. 29, and Biffle said that leadership changed the meeting location at the last minute to avoid any protests or backlash from Hall and his followers.

“Everyone who showed up was brought there by their parents,” Biffle said. “A parent has to make the choice for their child to be there, and they fill out paperwork. We’ve always been a multi-generational community, and we’ve never claimed to only serve the youth.

“We’re not just trying to help teens, but to help their families, too.”

Biffle and Shaver explained that LGBTQ youth are at higher risks of running away, committing suicide and experiencing family violence. They said their goal at P.L.A.C. is to reduce their community’s chances of adding to those statistics.

“Statistically, 7 percent of adults have said they’re a part of the LGBTQ community, which means there could be more than 10,000 LGBTQ people in Parker County,” Biffle said. “There are young people who are a part of our community, and we want to see them grow up to become adults. If our group can help more kids survive, we’ll have served our purpose.”

Hall posted four images of a drag performer dancing at an all-ages Pride event P.L.A.C. put on two years ago, calling the picnic a “grooming event” and describing the dance as “provocative.” But again, Biffle said, Hall’s posts drastically mischaracterized the event,

“We’ve held a Pride picnic in the park for the last four year without anyone saying anything negative about it,” Biffle said. “The queen was background checked, just so no one could accuse him of anything. He took photos with families and made sure that his performance was age appropriate.”

One person commenting on Hall’s post pointed out that the pictures of the drag queen were deliberately misleading, as they blurred out the area around the performer’s genitals even though the dancer was wearing several layers of tights under his silver sparkly leotard.

Biffle said none of the parents there had any issue with the queen’s performance.

In that same post, Hall incorrectly claimed that Grace First Presbyterian Church held the Pride event. Biffle said the church did allow P.L.A.C. to hold a drag story time event in the church building in 2021, but Grace First Presbyterian had nothing to do with the Pride picnic in the park.

“We spoke to their board members, and they voted to let us hold” the drag story time event Biffle said. “They approved the music and books and crafts. The queen discussed the fact that he was a boy playing dress-up, like any other superhero or princess. The kids understood.”

Hall posted photos of that story time event as well, and parents whose children were in the pictures messaged him to request that he take down photos of their children that he had used without permission — a request Hall’s campaign eventually complied with.

Hall’s latest attempt to threaten P.L.A.C.’s place in the community came on Sep. 23, when he posted on Facebook his followers to sign a Google petition to “stop P.L.A.C. from targeting children.” Five days later, Hall said “techno-fascist Google” disabled his petition and revoked his access to the list of those who signed.

“We will press forward and continue to gather signatures,” Hall pledged.

Biffle said Hall threatened to report P.L.A.C. to the police, which is why she went to the police herself. She said Weatherford’s chief of police was supportive of P.L.A.C.’s goals and has said he will work with the organization in the future.

But Hall’s attacks have had an impact: “Brandon Hall gave our personal information and organization to Libs of Tiktok, a terrorist organization who encourages members to take issues into their own hands, which is another reason we went to the police, to get active shooter training,” Biffle said. “He said he’d try to make it so we couldn’t work with or be around children. It just went too far.”

Biffle and Shaver said they’ve never personally spoken to Hall, but they blocked him from P.L.A.C.’s Facebook group after he “started a rant” in early September.

“We haven’t engaged with him on our public page, and we apologized to members on our private page for his behavior,” Biffle said.

“We at P.L.A.C. are not doing anything to entice or antagonize Brandon Hall. We don’t want this to go any further; we want this to stop. But we aren’t trying to make a spectacle out of this.”

Shaver said she asked P.L.A.C.’s members not to engage with Hall or his supporters. “Our one goal is to keep our community safe,” she said. “We are an accepting community that does not want conflict. We’re not trying to divide people.”

Until Hall started his online crusade against P.L.A.C., organizers said, the nonprofit hadn’t received any backlash from the community.

“Usually people don’t even know we’re here,” Biffle said. “We get information out to the people who need it, but we try to fly right under the radar. We don’t try to rock the boat or do protests or anything. We’re trying to be the good guys.”

As of press deadline, Brandon Hall had not responded to requests for comment.