Travis County Judge Orders the Group Behind Transgender Youth Mailers and Texts to Answer Questions Under Oath on Friday
Judge Jan Soifer ordered a representative of the Wyoming-registered Texas Transgender Student Union to sit for a Friday deposition at 9 a.m. and denied its motion to dismiss; the group says it will appeal.
A Travis County judge has ordered the people behind mailers and text messages offering support for transgender youths to answer questions under oath. District Judge Jan Soifer ruled late Tuesday that a representative of the Texas Transgender Student Union — registered last month in Wyoming, with a mailing address linked to a Houston post office box — must sit for a deposition on Friday at 9 a.m. over Zoom, according to San Antonio Current reporting of the Texas Tribune account, read in full this cycle and cross-checked against CNN's reporting on the ruling. Soifer denied the group's motion to dismiss the case, according to a spokesperson for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, known as TENT.
TENT requested the deposition, saying the mailers were worded to appear to come from TENT and prompted a backlash that included threats of violence. Text messages that began arriving on phones across Texas on October 12 advertised guides on 'bathrooms and beyond for trans kids at school' and linked to TENT's website without identifying the sender; the mailers, addressed to 'students' at homes across Texas, began arriving October 17 and were marketed as resources for LGBTQ+ youth. Soifer also ordered Infobip, the messaging company whose client sent the texts, to respond to written deposition questions.
The Wyoming group argued in a written response that a deposition would strip it of its First Amendment right to speak anonymously, and said it has no plans for more communications like those at issue; it will appeal Soifer's ruling to the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals, according to a court filing reported by the Current. The group is represented by Chris Hilton, a former lawyer for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office. In West Texas, Republican District Attorney Sarah Stogner has opened a criminal investigation into the mailers, saying they were apparent forgeries intended to influence voters. The mailers make no reference to specific candidates, but their arrival around the start of early voting raised questions about possible motives to influence voters, the reporting notes.
