A Texas state representative has introduced legislation that would make being trans in Texas a “fraud” punishable by two years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The bill echoes a similar directive recently instated by the U.S. State Department.
State Rep. Tom (R) filed a bill on Wednesday to amend the Texas Penal Code to create a new class of fraud in the state: “Gender Identity Fraud.” Texans could be charged with the crime for identifying as a sex different from the one they were assigned at birth, Chron reports.
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House Bill 3817 would add the new felony to a list of crimes including deceptive business practices, commercial bribery, and identity fraud. The bill is similar to a recent directive issued by State Secretary Marco Rubio instructing all international visa offices to permanently ban transgender athletes from trying to enter the U.S. under laws prohibiting “fraud.”
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The Texas bill has no co-sponsors and hasn’t been scheduled for a committee hearing.
“This is the kind of bill that keeps me up at night,” said Carrie Butcher, founder of Butcher Legal Group in Dallas.
“This fits right along with the agenda that we’ve been seeing pushed, for the past several sessions, specifically around policing of people’s gender and how they’re able to identify themselves on documents and in sports leagues,” Butcher said.
Last year, Texas barred trans residents from changing their sex on state-issued driver’s licenses and birth certificates to match their gender identity.
Butcher worries that trans people who have changed some of their documents could face criminal charges when seeking housing, employment or medical care.
“We have a lot of people who have only been able to update some of their documents before laws have changed,” Butcher said. “When your identifying documents don’t match what your biological sex was at birth, how are you supposed to prove who you are?”
Texas wants to pass a bill making it a fraud to be trans & a felony. Unbelievably ridiculous. There’s no fraud in being trans. I make no secret that I’m a trans man, although I might have to start with shit like this. What I am is implicit in the title “trans.” It’s self… pic.twitter.com/p9eQ2IdIeE
— The Pissed Off Lawyer (@legaltweetz) March 6, 2025
The proposed legislation comes on the heels of another recently introduced bill to impose an all-ages blanket ban on gender-affirming care in the state. Doctors and clinicians providing hormone therapy or any other form of gender care for trans Texans would face prison time and fines.
Texas outlawed gender care for trans minors in 2023.
A staggering 456 anti-LGBTQ+ bills are currently under consideration in U.S. state legislatures, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nearly 60 of those are moving through the Texas legislature alone.
The flurry of new legislation at the state level aligns with President Trump’s efforts to erase trans identity from the federal government and American society, including executive orders to ban transgender service members from the military, exclude trans student-athletes from school sports, and a “gender ideology” diktat declaring the existence of only two immutable sexes, male and female.
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