ACLU Foundation of Texas

The ACLU of Texas is dedicated to securing and defending constitutional and civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Texans.

LGBTQ Texans lack the most basic protections against discrimination under state law. Many LGBTQ Texans — including especially vulnerable groups like LGBTQ Texans of color, transgender Texans, and LGBTQ Texas youth — face workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, health care discrimination, bullying, and violence because of their identity.

We are committed to securing protections for these vulnerable groups by fighting for LGBTQ equality in Texas schools, courts, city council chambers, and at the state legislature.

The ACLU of Texas is committed to helping Texas re-envision a criminal legal system that is fair and free of racial bias, keeps our communities safe, and respects the rights of all who come into contact with it.

Texas has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the country, and many prisoners are locked up for non-violent offenses like drug possession. Incarcerating people is very expensive. Texas has an annual corrections budget of about $3 billion. That money could be better spent on education and programs to improve our communities.

We are committed to reducing the number Texans who are incarcerated and shrinking the footprint of the criminal legal system by seeking reforms in policing, reducing the number of Texans held in pre-trial detention, and seeking changes to overly harsh sentencing that have overcrowded our state’s prisons.

The fight for immigrants’ rights is especially important in the Lone Star State. Sixteen percent of our state’s residents are foreign-born, and we share a 1,254 mile border with Mexico. That border and the Texas communities along it are the location where many of the anti-immigrant policies, militarization, and overpolicing that have defined US immigration policies are enacted. Texas is thus a critical front in the national battle for immigrants’ rights in our country.

Immigrants in Texas have always been an important part of our state’s history, culture, and economy — but immigrant communities continue to be profiled, harassed, detained, and demonized by extremist politicians and the militarized law enforcement agencies they control. We at the ACLU of Texas are committed to defending those rights in courtrooms, at the state legislature, and in communities large and small throughout the state.

The ACLU of Texas works to ensure that everyone in our great state can make the best decision for themselves and for their family about when and whether to have a child, without undue influence by politicians and special interest groups.

The decision to have an abortion is deeply personal, and is best left to the individual person, their family, and their doctor. But in spite of the constitutional guarantee to safe, legal abortion services established by Roe v. Wade in 1973, extremist politicians in the Texas legislature and in Texas cities have worked to render abortion services inaccessible to as many Texans as possible.

Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed today, and it’s incredibly safe. We must fight back against laws that make it difficult if not impossible for Texans to get an abortion if they need one.