AUSTIN, Texas — After Twitter flagged him for “hateful conduct,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dug in on his decision to deny the gender identity of the nation’s highest-ranking transgender official.
Adm. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and a transgender woman, was recently named a woman of the year by USA Today. In a statement Paxton tweeted and sent to campaign supporters, the attorney general reiterated that he refuses to acknowledge Levine as a woman because he was following “science.”
Locked in a competitive bid for reelection, Paxton’s comments come on the heels of the state’s controversial decision to launch child abuse investigations into the families of transgender youth.
