Texas Governor Greg Abbott Wants to "End" Trans People Being Allowed to Teach in Texas [View all]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott Wants to "End" Trans People Being Allowed to Teach in Texas
Abbott was speaking at a convention for the Young Conservatives of Texas when he made the statement, audio of which was later shared on X.
BY MATHEW RODRIGUEZ
April 22, 2024

The right continues to make the classroom a battleground for trans rights.

While speaking to a group of young conservatives on Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told attendees that he would like to limit the expression of transgender teachers in the classroom, according to audio shared online by Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli. To make his point, Abbott told attendees at the Young Conservatives of Texas convention a story about a teacher in Lewisville, Texas, who Abbott described as a “man who would go to school dressed as a woman in a dress, high heels, and makeup.”

Abbott appears to be referring to Rachmad Tjachyadi, who was a beloved teacher at Hebron High School in Lewisville, but resigned in March after being targeted online by Libs of TikTok for wearing a dress to a school spirit event. An investigation by the Lewisville Independent School District determined that Tjachyadi had not violated any district policies. But the science teacher resigned anyway, citing as a reason the “hateful comments” he received after the Libs of TikTok post and its subsequent backlash.

In his remarks, which misconstrued the situation surrounding Tjachyadi, Abbott continued, “What do you think is going through the mind of the students that’s in that classroom?,” he pondered out loud. “Are they focusing on the subject that this person is trying to teach?” After posing this hypothetical, Abbott said, “I don’t know.”

He then added, “What I do know are these two things: One is this person, a man, dressing as a woman, in a public high school in the state of Texas, he’s trying to normalize the concept that this type of behavior is OK. This type of behavior is not OK, and this is the type of behavior that we want to make sure we end in the state of Texas.”

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