Dallas ISD has more than 30,000 emails dating back to last year that include mentions of gender identity terms and left-wing sex education advocacy groups.
In response to an open records request made by The Dallas Express, the district demanded roughly $9,000 to provide the 30,628 emails flagged under the request. The Dallas Express had asked for documents dating back to last year that include the following terms:
“Transgender,” “trans youth,” “hormone therapy,” “puberty blockers,” “gender-affirming,” “gender affirming,” “nonbinary,” “Planned Parenthood,” “SIECUS,” “Sexuality Information and Education Council,” “Advocates for Youth,” “national sex education standards,” “Texas Is Ready Coalition,” “Healthy Futures of Texas,” “tucking 101,” “Trevor Project,” “North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens,” “Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy,” “Texas Youth-Friendly Initiative,” and “Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition.”
A district official responded via email:
“For that Search you are looking at 30,628 emails not to mentions [sic] most email [sic] are at least two pages and for every 100 pages to review and redact is [sic] 1 hour which is $15 dollars per hour.”
If each email is in fact two pages, a conservative estimate of the cost would be $9,188. Due to the staggering cost, The Dallas Express narrowed its request to just the emails of Dallas ISD’s school board trustees (Edwin Flores, Sarah Weinberg, Dan Micciche, Maxie Johnson, Justin Henry, Joyce Foreman, Ben Mackey, Camile White, and Joe Carreón) and the district’s school leadership team (Tiffany Huitt, Mark Ramirez, Laura Garza, Ryan Zysk, and Tanya Shelton).
A district official said that the original search terms appear in 3,716 pages of emails and would cost $668 to obtain.
The groups mentioned in The Dallas Express’ request work to promote sex education curricula for young students. For instance, the National Sex Education Standards, which was written by the Sexuality Information and Education Council (SIECUS) and Advocacy for Youth, teaches kindergartners about gender identity and reproductive body parts, as reported by The Washington Free Beacon.
The Texas Is Ready Coalition was formed by three organizations: Healthy Futures of Texas, the North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens, and the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The organizations stand against abstinence-only sex education and parental opt-in requirements for such content in Texas schools.
Healthy Futures of Texas has an educational program called “Pride Guide to STIs.” The webpage includes sections on “Tucking 101” and “Binding 101,” which instruct transgender “young adults” on how to hide their penis or breasts — practices that can lead to potentially negative health outcomes.
Texas Youth-Friendly Initiative and Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition are also both projects of Healthy Futures of Texas.
“LGBTQ+ youth have long been ignored in conversations regarding sexual and reproductive education, and we demand better for all young people,” Healthy Futures of Texas posted on Facebook. “#SexEdForAll guarantees medically accurate information that includes queer experiences and identities.”
The Dallas Express sent the same open records request to Fort Worth ISD. The request flagged nearly 23,000 pages of emails, which the district wanted more than $3,000 for.
“22,640 pages ÷ 100 pages per hour = 226.40 hours x $15.00 per hour = $3,396.00,” a Fort Worth ISD official responded in an email.
The request was subsequently narrowed to specific employees. Fort Worth ISD has yet to disclose its new price tag.
Such charges by ISDs and other governmental bodies can limit citizens’ access to public information, essentially putting a price on transparency. Texas state agencies demanded payments totaling up to $48,500 in response to a request from the Texas Scorecard for documents related to equity initiatives.