Most Texans do not know that in Texas a person can change their sex on their Texas Driver’s License or Texas ID as well as on your birth certificate. One Texas woman only came to learn this when her husband of 15 years and father of her children decided to transition to live his life presenting as if he were female. It was in the process of her divorce that Tracy Shannon learned that her husband was able to change his legal name and sex identifier on his Texas Driver’s License while they were still married without even notifying her of this change.
Having legally changed his name and gender in Texas, he was recognized in a Texas Family Court as a woman. Shannon was divorcing a “legal woman” in court when she had married a man. Shannon says the court effectively made her a “paper lesbian.” Changing his name and gender identity on his state ID was not the only thing Shannon’s husband was able to do behind her back. Shannon believed this was an effort to have a landmark case against the Littleton case which upheld traditional marriage in Texas.
Many years prior, a Houston-area counselor wrote her husband a letter that he was able to take to an endocrinologist to begin hormone treatment. This was four years into their fifteen-year marriage. Shannon did not discover this secret until near the end of the marriage, but she had noticed her husband was developing breasts which he attributed to the use of OCD medication to help control his “unwanted urges to cross-dress.”
When the couple had sought therapy for Shannon’s husband’s cross-dressing issue that was harming their marriage, the Houston-area counselor told Shannon she is probably a lesbian because she had fallen in love with and married a man who had an inner feminine side to him. Shannon rejected this notion. The therapist also informed Shannon that she was very closed-minded for not embracing the cross-dressing and asked why it would not be permissible for her husband to enjoy weekends away with other men cross-dressing together.
Unfortunately, when it came time to divorce in Texas, Shannon was met with a legal system that already prioritized gender identity over reality. Her children were ordered into therapy where they were told they could no longer call their father “dad.” Their distress at losing a father to transition was not addressed, instead the court ordered they be counseled to accept their father as a woman. Joint custody of the children was awarded despite the concerns Shannon had about what her children were being and could potentially be exposed to.
During the family court proceedings Shannon was pressured by her husband’s attorneys to use the preferred pronouns and new name her husband had taken on. Shannon said, “It felt like I was being bullied by the very people who ask for tolerance. Did they not understand I was married to this man for 15 years and had three children with him? They wanted to have the court hold me in contempt if I would not go along with the charade that he was suddenly a woman.” Shannon did not give in to these demands and fortunately for her the judge at the time did not insist on it.
More than a decade later, Shannon believes it would be a different story. In fact, in Texas parents lose custody of their children for not affirming their children’s gender identity. While fighting for custody of her children in court, Shannon was asked how she could co-parent with her transvestite ex being that she is a conservative Christian. No doubt today the refusal to adhere to trans ideology would be cause for a parent to lose custody of their child to the transvestite spouse.
Shannon’s story was covered in depth in a soul crushing interview with Daily Wire. The details of what she and her children endured are all too common among trans widows (women whose husbands leave to present as female). While her husband’s betrayals are shocking, what is even more appalling is the way the state unwittingly assisted in the betrayal. Her story reveals the need for common sense legislation in Texas to prevent such atrocities in the future.
Texas DPS reported that more than 16,000 gender changes were made to licenses and IDs between 2020 and 2022. The process for changing the gender identifier and name on a Texas Driver’s License or Texas ID are detailed on the Travis County Law Library website. All that is needed is a letter from a therapist stating that the diagnosis (gender dysphoria) and that the change is in the best interests of the patient.
A criminal background check is not required but fingerprints are taken and an affidavit is filled out stating the person seeking the name and sex identifier change has not been charged with a felony crime. Convicted felons have to wait two years from time of discharge from prison. Sex offenders must contact their local law enforcement of the requested name change, but they can still get a name change. What’s the probability of something falling through the cracks there?
In the Texas 88th Legislative session HB 3883 was introduced by Ellen Troxclair. This bill would require the Department of Vital Statistics to record sex as determined at birth and determined by a person’s reproductive system. The bill would also codify sex (not gender) in law and defines the terms male, female, boy, girl, woman, man, father, and mother. Passage of this bill would be a serious first step toward protecting Texans from the trans agenda.
This bill along with several other Republican Party priority legislation was killed in the State Affairs Committee chaired by Todd Hunter (R – Corpus Christi). Another bill, HB 1952 by Representative Toth, would have required classification of a child as male or female on the birth certificate as determined by their chromosomes at birth and would have applied the method of determining sex to other laws in the state. This bill was killed in Calendars Committee chaired by Dustin Burrows (R – Lubbock). A similar bill by Representative Perry was killed in the House Public Health committee chaired by Representative Klick (R – Richland Hills).
Shannon is advocating for the above two measures to be added to a special call by Governor Abbott. Recently, Shannon spoke at a Let Women Speak Rally where she shared her story of betrayal by her husband, the State, and the medical and therapeutic communities. She also spoke of the heartbreak her children who cried themselves to sleep for years. She and other women raised the concern of men who identify as women gaining access to women’s spaces. She and women at the event object to men who identify as women having legal documents or state identification that declares them to be female.
Shannon said in her remarks, “Men who identify as women are often autogynephilic males who are sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as women.” Shannon stated that there are archives available online of men accessing women’s restrooms and filming themselves engaged in self-pleasuring. “The ways the State of Texas is allowing women and families to be harmed, it seems that that state has allowed the legal system to be weaponized by the trans movement to destroy families and endanger women,” said Shannon.
You can contact Governor Abbott here tell him to add HB 3883 and HB 1952 to a special call to stop the weaponizing of our legal system against women and families. Governor Abbott has the ability to prevent atrocities like what happened to Tracy Shannon and her children in Texas.
