In 2016, during the run-up to a Texas ban on transgender folks using bathrooms, Amber Briggle attempted to help Texas AG Ken Paxton understand that trans people are people. Several years later she and her family find themselves under investigation for child abuse, due to Texas' tyrannical new law denying gender-affirming treatments to transgender children.
In 2016, when Texas tried to stop transgender students from using the bathroom of their choice, there were protests, press conferences and a whole lot of anger directed toward the state's elected officials.
But one mom tried something different — she invited Attorney General Ken Paxton to have dinner at her house with her 8-year-old transgender son. Amber Briggle told The 19th recently that Paxton and her son washed up together in the bathroom before dinner.
"He turns around and looks and says, 'This is nice. It's been a while since I had kids this age,'" Briggle told The 19th.
More than five years later, Paxton has helped set in motion a targeting of families with trans kids unlike anything experts or lawyers say they've ever seen — and the Briggles are now caught in the crosshairs.