A New Dawn For Trans Texans: Most Texas Anti-Trans Laws Poised to Fall After Shock Democratic Victories

With Democrats flipping the governor’s mansion, AG office, four state Supreme Court seats, and the Court of Appeals, the days of an anti-trans Texas have finally come to an end.

Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa and Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson | Images: TX Democratic Convention, Nathan Johnson’s Campaign

Last night, an unprecedented blue wave swept across the nation as Democrats retook the House and Senate in overwhelming fashion. As things stand, Democrats have flipped 7 Senate seats—and currently lead in Alaska and Mississippi—along with around 40 House seats, with more potentially to come as votes are counted. Simply put, Americans delivered a sharp rebuke of Trump, his allies, and the broader MAGA movement, with races swinging upwards of 20 percentage points in many states.

But of these extraordinary wins, perhaps the biggest prize for Democrats was Texas, where a Democrat had not won statewide since 1994. Although the Democrat running for Senate—James Talarico—was expected to win narrowly, the state’s long-entrenched Republicans in other offices were predicted to hold on. Instead, what followed was total wipeout for the Texas GOP: Talarico won by over 12 percentage points and was projected as the winner merely 2 hours after polls closed, while three-term Republican governor Greg Abbott lost to Gina Hinojosa by 7.

Further down the ballot, a similar story unfolded as Democrats handedly won the races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, railroad commissioner, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner, and state comptroller. Dems also took all 4 (of 9) seats on the state Supreme Court that were up this cycle as well as all 3 seats on the 15th Court of Appeals, which has statewide jurisdiction and handles all appeals involving the state government. And best of all, Democrats secured a majority in the state House of Representatives for the first time since 2003.

For trans Texans—myself included—the significance of these victories cannot be overstated. Since 2021, the state’s Republican government has targeted trans people with impunity, systematically, undemocratically, and sometimes even illegally stripping our rights without even pretending to give us a say.

At the center of this aggressive push were two men: attorney general Ken Paxton and governor Greg Abbott. In February 2022, Paxton released an opinion declaring gender-affirming for minors to be child abuse, and a few days later, Abbott ordered investigations into several families as a result. Then, in March 2024, the state quietly banned its Medicaid program from covering all forms of gender-affirming care. In August, the right to change your gender marker on driver’s licenses and birth certificates was revoked virtually overnight, again at the behest of Paxton. And this year, Paxton announced that therapists and psychologists could not treat trans kids in any capacity unless they impose conversion therapy.

Through this quiet implementation, Paxton and Abbott did everything they could to ensure that these policies harmed as many trans people as possible. After all, leaving these questions up to the much slower legislature would’ve given people ample time to prepare themselves beforehand. And because of the extreme nature of some of them, it’s not even certain that they would’ve even passed in the first place; indeed, no other state has launched similar investigations into trans kids’ families or banned trans kids from seeking talk therapy.

Now, their arrogance, driven by the belief that they’d retain control of the state government, has doomed the very anti-trans policies they worked so hard to implement. As a result, once Democrats take office, many of Texas’ worst restrictions can be undone with the stroke of a pen. AG-elect Nathan Johnson has already indicated he’ll do so, condemning Paxton’s anti-trans actions—and explicitly naming one—in an interview with the Atlantic.

“We’re talking about not abusing your power to make certain people miserable, to rally your base,” he added, “and I’m happy to say that I don’t think that kind of behavior is being rewarded politically right now in Texas.”

He was right: he won without taking a single anti-trans position despite his Republican opponent, Mayes Middleton, attacking him heavily on his pro-trans stances. Furthermore, Johnson actually already pledged to not enforce the state’s bathroom law, calling it a “dumb law” and saying that Ken Paxton’s reporting hotline “will not have anyone answering it” during a primary debate.

As such, given his spotless record of voting against anti-trans legislation during his time in the state legislature, Johnson appears likely to rescind all three of Paxton’s extremely harmful anti-trans opinions once his term begins. And much like Abbott did during his time in office, governor-elect Hinojosa will have the power to direct the implementation of policies consistent with the AG’s new opinions.

But the most significant story isn’t even this; it’s the judiciary. As previously mentioned, Democrats swept all of the statewide judicial contests, bringing the state Supreme Court down to a slim 5-4 Republican majority while taking full control of the 15th Court of Appeals. Because the state has passed quite a few anti-trans laws—including youth gender-affirming care ban SB 14 and bathroom bill SB 8—the AG and governor can’t undo them alone, but unlike before, those wishing to challenge the laws suddenly find themselves in a much more favorable environment.

The most important factor is that should trans Texans sue the state over these laws, AG-elect Johnson would be tasked with defending them. Except, like other Democratic AGs have done in the past, he may not want to in the first place. As such, once a verdict is issued by a district court or the fully Democratic 15th Court of Appeals, he could simply choose not to appeal to a higher court, and under Texas law, he has that discretion. The Texas GOP does not currently have a way to hold him accountable over that refusal, either, as only the Democratic-controlled state House can initiate impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, the only other person who could realistically intervene is the governor, and given her track record she almost certainly won’t.

But even at the Texas Supreme Court, there shockingly now appears to be a majority willing to overturn the state’s youth gender-affirming care ban. Specifically, one of the 5 conservative justices, Debra Lehrmann, is on the record opposing the law already. In fact, when it was challenged before the court two years ago, Lehrmann wrote a scathing 31-page dissent characterizing the ban as an infringement on parental rights that “is not only cruel—it is unconstitutional.” Since then, Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment explicitly enshrining the right of a parent to “exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child,” meaning Lehrmann’s argument has only grown stronger.

Because of this, the state’s aggressively enforced gender-affirming care ban may very well be on its last legs. It remains to be seen how exactly the litigation will play out, but once it’s challenged, expect it to fall fairly quickly.

The bottomline is, in the next four years, Texas may very well go from being one of the most anti-trans states in the country to being a state that is mildly protective of us. And despite what the GOP and Elon Musk would want you to believe, Texas voters really don’t care either way. Hundreds of millions of dollars in anti-trans ads only resulted in an electoral wipeout for Republicans in the state, showing once and for all that Democrats’ support for trans people isn’t the salient issue that conservatives have wanted it to be.

I still remember reading the news about the child abuse investigations from four years ago. I was 15 at the time and I was scared into silence by those headlines for over a year, afraid I’d be taken away from my parents. I still remember being denied the medical care that I needed for nearly three years. I still remember therapists refusing to see me out of fear of going to prison.

For almost five years, I’ve only been able to feel anger and sadness at the state that raised me.

But today, I feel hopeful.

For the first time, I can rest knowing that Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott won’t hurt any more trans kids like me.

And Texas, once a testing ground for the GOP’s extreme anti-trans push, has fallen to Democrats who seem eager to dismantle as much of that extremism as they can.

For the first time in a long time, trans Texans are finally free.