In a joint petition released this week, a coalition of five civil rights organizations argued that anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Texas violate international human rights agreements and called on the United Nations to intervene.
Signatories from Equality Texas, the ACLU of Texas, GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law submitted the 37-page joint allegation letter to 17 U.N. officials on Monday. The letter focuses on seven Texas laws passed in 2023, which it says are part of “a systemic discriminatory policy” against LGBTQ+ Texans that violates multiple human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). More than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ laws were introduced in U.S. state legislatures last year, 20% of which came from Texas alone, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign.
“Failing to meet the minimum standards of international human rights treaties highlights the dire state of LGBTQIA+ rights in Texas,” said Equality Texas CEO Ricardo Martinez in a joint press release accompanying the letter, accusing Texas lawmakers of “dragging our nation into a human rights crisis.”
“When state leaders fail us, we turn to the courts and the federal government, when they fail us we turn to the world,” Martinez wrote.
The allegation letter specifically takes aim at several of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s most notorious new anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including the ban on gender-affirming medical care for trans youth, discriminatory restrictions on trans athletes in public high schools and colleges, and the heavily publicized state ban on drag performances (which a federal judge permanently blocked last September). In total, the letter alleges, Texas’ laws have violated LGBTQ+ residents’ human rights including the right to privacy, freedom of expression, health, and freedom of religion, and constitute “public incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence” in violation of the ICCPR.
The signatories also criticize the U.S. federal government for failing to mount an organized response to Texas’ alleged violations. “Allowing the unchecked proliferation of such bills in state legislatures indicates an unwillingness to adhere to the human rights norms of the ICCPR, both from individual states and the federal government,” the letter reads, arguing “the United States has failed to address localized practices that violate the rights of LGBTQIA+ persons.”
“We join a long line of advocates who have appealed to international organizations to hold U.S. institutions accountable for protecting the human rights of all people, no exceptions,” wrote Oni K. Blair, Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas, in the coalition’s joint release Monday.
U.N. officials are already monitoring the surge of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and political rhetoric in the U.S. In November, the U.N. Human Rights Committee identified 29 different ICCPR violations in the U.S., mostly due to state laws or policies that discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The report also identified violations involving drone strikes, police racism, and missing or murdered indigenous women (MMIW).
“The [United States] should adopt all measures necessary to ensure that state laws that discriminate against persons based on their sexual orientation and gender identity are repealed,” the U.N. report urged, calling on the Biden administration to “intensify its efforts” in meaningfully opposing such laws.
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