The Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted on Tuesday to stop funding an organization for young girls that promotes abortion and gender ideology.
County taxpayer dollars have funded Girls Inc. since 2007. Still, commissioners decided against renewing their partnership with the organization, citing the group’s pro-abortion stance and its support of the notion that gender can be fluid.
The group was set to receive a $115,000 grant through the county’s community youth development program to help implement the nonprofit’s “Girl Power! Program,” which focuses on stress management, self-esteem, hygiene, and maintaining healthy relationships, according to the Fort Worth Report.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare claimed the group was too controversial to justify spending taxpayer money on. He encouraged the group to ask for more money in the future if it could offer more “apolitical” programming.
“The county government should not be funding, nor should the county government be passing through money from some other source, for an organization that is so deeply ideological and encourages the children that they are teaching to go advocate for social change,” O’Hare said, per the FWR.
The Girls Inc. national advocacy platform promotes sexual education that includes gender ideology. It also opposes abstinence-only curricula and mandatory parental notification when minors seek abortions. The group supports the Black Lives Matter movement and equity for “every menstruator,” including “transgender men and non-binary people who experience a menstrual cycle.”
At the meeting, more than a dozen Tarrant County residents spoke against funding Girls Inc. One such resident was Carlos Turcios, who emphasized that grant recipients should be representative of the public.
“Our taxpayer money should not be spent on any organization that advocates for social causes [about which] taxpayers don’t agree,” Turcios told The Texan.
The move to stop the county from funding Girls Inc. passed in a 3-2 vote, with Commissioners Roy Brooks and Alisa Simmons voting in opposition.
I have not heard anything to convince me that this is anything more than a nonprofit performing valuable services,” Simmons said, per The Texan.
Girls Inc. did not respond to a request for comment.