Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a new directive to state agency heads, telling them to reject what he described in a press release as “radical sexual orientation and gender identity ideologies,” confirming the state’s commitment to what he calls a “biological reality.”
In a letter sent to agency leaders earlier this week, Abbott spoke about his administration’s commitment to following state and federal laws, especially in response to Biden’s past efforts to expand gender recognition laws beyond male and female.
The governor’s letter states that “The State of Texas recognizes only two sexes — male and female” and “sex discrimination consists in treating a member of one sex less favorably than the other, absent some pertinent difference.”
Abbott also criticized what he called efforts to “distort” the legal system protecting equal treatment of men and women “in order to impose mandates concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.”
“For example, Travis County courts purported to instruct state agencies to change an individual’s ‘sex’ designation on birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect supposed gender identity. These instructions were not grounded in any recognized state cause of action, were issued in proceedings where no agency was a party, and contradicted both statutory law and biological reality,” Abbott wrote.
The directive comes shortly after former President Donald Trump’s January 20 executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which aims to roll back policies set during the Biden Administration that were seen as a push to promote gender categories beyond male and female.
In a recent press release, the governor affirmed that all state agency practices, policies, and employment procedures must comply with both the letter of the law and what he describes as “biological truth”, namely, that there are only two sexes.
Abbott’s letter builds on previous actions he has taken to fight Biden’s reinterpretation of Title IX, a federal law that purportedly “protects students from sexual harassment in educational programs or activities operated by recipients of federal funding.”
In 2023, Abbott directed the Texas Education Agency to reject the new Title IX guidance issued by the Biden administration that he argued would mandate schools to accommodate gender identity policies that conflict with the rights of both parents and students.
As previously reported by DX, the governor also instructed public universities and community colleges in Texas to ignore these changes and refrain from implementing policies that would align with Biden’s revised interpretation of Title IX.
In May of 2024, Abbott said in a news release that “Texas will stand up not only to President Biden’s rewrite of Title IX, but also his plans to destroy the legacy of women’s collegiate sports. Texas will fight to protect those laws, to protect Texas women, and to deny the President’s abuse of authority.”