Once known, even branded, for its dynamism and progress, Texas has entered into a spiral of animus and legislative contempt toward LGBTQ+ Texans reminiscent of Mississippi in the Sixties, in its final throws of opposition to integration and civil rightsMississippi helped clear the way for its massive resistance to integration by harnessing the fear of what legislators called racial perverts and outside agitator deviants. U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves wrote in his 2014 opinion striking down Mississippis ban on same-sex marriage, segregationists called their opponents racial perverts; Klan propaganda tied together Communists, homosexuals, Jews, fornicators and angry blacksinfidels all. Today, this seems to be the new Texas blueprint from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms (for the infidels) to enacting book bans, drag bans, a new ban on LGBTQ+ clubs in schools, school speech bans (Dont say gay), and an obsessive number of anti-transgender proposals and laws.Despite incredible cities like Houston, Austin, and Dallas/Fort Worth, the state seems to have locked itself into a gerrymandered, fundamentalist, and hate-steeped lawmaking that is gaining national infamy for Texas, much like Mississippi achieved during the Sixties. Remember blues singer Nina Simones hit song Mississippi Goddam? Through the notorious Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, formed in 1956 to fight integration and organizing of Black voters, the state launched an investigatory war on Negro perverts openly gay African American student organizers on campuses like HBCU Rust College in Holly Springs. It was Gov. Paul Johnson Jr.s and the legislatures politics of exposure to crush campus organizing.But there was a larger goal: stop integration in its tracks by harnessing old-time, Southern homophobia. Its the agitators and perverts! The good news is they failed, thanks to President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today As in Mississippi, the tap root of Texas political use of LGBTQ+ legislative politics goes back to racism.The father of Texas political homophobia, Waco Congressman (and later Athens, Texas) John Dowdy (1912-1995) was one of four Texas Congressmen who signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto, a call to arms for southern states to resist integration of all public places triggered by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The effort was called Massive Resistance. The entire Congressional delegations of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia signed the Southern Manifesto. along with Texas Congressman Dowdy. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn were not signatories.When blocking integration stopped working for him, Dowdy went on to the next best target: perverts and homosexuals. Dowdy organized and led a historic attack, holding hearings in the House of Representatives in 1963, targeting Dr. Franklin E. Kameny, president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. Dowdys bill to suspend the Mattachines license to operate as a non-profit in the District of Columbia was passed by both the House and Senate. The acts of these people are banned under the laws of God, the laws of nature and are in violation of the laws of man! Dowdy thundered.The controversy afforded Frank Kameny a national platform for his message Gay is good that reverberated across Texas. A political descendant of Dowdy, a far more powerful politician in Texas today, is Lt. Governor Dan Patrick named this year as chairman of Donald Trumps Religious Liberty Commission. The Commissions inaugural meeting, in sync with its Christian Nationalist messaging, was held at the evangelical Museum of the Bible in Washington. We can be sure one of its first targets will be same-sex marriage.Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick drove the Texas legislature in the last session to file over 150 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, according to Equality Texas. These included a ban on gay-straight alliances; a parental rights bill giving school boards, not school librarians, the final say over what materials are allowed in school libraries; bathroom bills; trans healthcare bills; counseling bills; and Dont Say Gay bills. There was so much incoming legislation, think of needing a counter-drone system to identify, track, and destroy them all. Both Texas A&M University and the University of Texas attempted to ban campus drag shows. Walter Wendler, president of West Texas A&M University (located in Canyon, near Amarillo), compared drag to blackface performers denigrating others (women). Following West Texas A&M, the Texas A&M system of eleven universities with over 150,000 students banned drag on campus. In this atmosphere of denigration and fear, Texas Republicans continued to tighten their lock on the legislature. It was never really about drag bans and blackface in Canyon.The legislature is now enacting a new Congressional districting map at Donald Trumps request that could net Texas Republicans as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, a five-alarm fire for American Democracy, warns California Gov. Gavin Newsom.Texas has reached the standard of Mississippi 63 for its LGBTQ+ citizens, their families, and allies, minus the violence for which we can all be grateful. From the White House to the House of Representatives, all the way down to banning high school gay-straight alliances; great universities like Texas A&M twisting and small towns like Canyon losing it Try to name a state that has surpassed Texas in the scale of its contempt. I only wish Texas humorist and author Larry King (Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) were still with us. He would love the clash of civilizations between chicken-fried, churched politicians and the students who use they/them and perhaps make us all laugh in a better place. Hey, Larry, Texas is #1!Charles Francis is president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., an LGBTQ history society. Author of Archive Activism: Memoir of a Uniquely Nasty Journey (University of North Texas Press, 2023), Francis great-grandfather moved from Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Dallas in 1878.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.