Time to get serious

It’s hard to believe I have now lived in Texas for nearly two years. I moved here from Los Angeles during the last Texas Legislative session. Now a new session is beginning.

And if you thought the proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation and subsequent anti-LGBTQ laws passed were bad in 2023, buckle your seat belts fellow queer Texans. It gets worse during this session in 2025.

The sheer number of proposed bills is mind boggling. Let’s face it: We are a small part of the overall population, but we are clearly the large boogeyman in the minds of Texas Republicans.

In the Texas House, there are 44 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced, and, in the Senate, another 14 bills have been introduced for a total of 58. Many bills are designed to further derail everything dealing with diversity, equity and inclusion in the state of Texas. Yet other bills introduced will restrict gender to male and female on government documents.

Many of the bills are related to education; some will require parental consent for sexuality education, and others are a Texas version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Other proposed legislation further targets trans individuals who may be incarcerated and where they can be housed, while yet other bills deal with funding, code changes and restriction of the sale of hormones and other drugs used for gender reassignment surgery.

In the last legislative session, Equality Texas claims it was able to fight back effectivelty, thus preventing 96 percent of the anti-LGBTQ legislation. That is an impressive number.

But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Even many of the bills that are introduced and now listed for this session will never even get assigned to a committee. The inner workings of the Texas Legislature will keep many of these so-called bills from even seeing the light of day.

But some of them will be assigned committees, and some will make it out of committee to the floor to be voted on, passed and signed by the governor to become law. In fact, in the super-majority Republican state of Texas most of those who make it to committee will make it to the floor and many will become law.

And it is here that Equality Texas must do a better job.

During the last session Equality Texas did our community a great disservice, in my opinion.

They went for street theater rather than progress.

While street theater and protest have an important role to play, it rarely changes minds of politicians. It’s red meat for your base and for maybe some allies, but the real art of politics and the real science of changing minds is done slowly by engaging in conversation, in appearing before committees and in choosing wisely who carries those messages.

I appreciate a good drag show. I love it, actually, and our community’s drag performers have done some heavy lifting — especially when their careers and dignity were attacked in the last session.

But also — and this is not a binary — we need to be swarming the legislature with everyday LGBTQ folks, making appointments with our legislators and presenting the varied face of our community. We must meet with them even if they oppose us — because that is how politics is done.

The Republican and Democratic legislators must see those of us who are teachers, business owners, parents, grandparents, preachers, office workers and laborers.

We in the LGBTQ community also must help Equality Texas understand that sometimes you must do things incrementally. In a state like Texas, where there is a supermajority of Republicans who oppose any advances of our liberty, we must not just say, “It’s all or nothing,” tilting at windmills.

Instead we must build, often incrementally, which means sometimes we as a community will lose. But we will also build, incrementally, our successes.

If Equality Texas wants to succeed, I say leave the street theater outside the Capitol. Save it for a rally. But inside, let’s make real progress in having them getting to know us, see us as their neighbors, teachers, preachers, bosses, employees and constituents.

I know I’m relatively new to Texas. But I came here after 44 years in leadership of the LGBTQ Jewish community of Los Angeles. I have done my share of dying in the streets to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS, getting arrested for our civil rights, organizing and fighting for marriage equality and against “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” fighting heinous anti-LGBTQ bills and propositions in California and nationally.

I have worked with both sides of the aisle toward our liberation — methodically and, yes, talking to people who don’t want me to breathe or succeed in life. We must engage the other side rationally, even when they are not rational.

The time has come for Equality Texas to stop with the theatrics and do the serious work of lobbying and enacting a real plan for our liberty and freedom and civil rights.

Rabbi Dr. Denise L. Eger, a resident of Austin, is a noted human rights and LGBTQ activist, author and executive coach. She is the founding rabbi emerita of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, Calif.