Free t-shirt and transportation: Texas school district "invites" its students to LGBT Pride parade

"Staff, students and their families are invited to represent Austin ISD in the annual Austin Pride Parade," the Austin Independent School District (Austin ISD) promotes on its website for a march in the Texan city on Saturday, Aug. 12.

After providing logistical details, such as that there will be free shuttles, the district "encourage[s]" people to wear "pride costumes and rainbow colors." It also informs:

The clothing guidelines are available in the English version of the invitation, but not in the Spanish version. Austin ISD, which has 116 schools and more than 70,000 students, bills itself as the eighth largest district in the state. According to its own data, more than half of its student body is of Hispanic heritage.

Fully booked

Austin ISD has called on its students to march in the Texas city on at least two other occasions, in 2018 and 2022. In a video of the first march, students from different schools can be seen with district merchandise linked to the LGBT movement:

In the same video uploaded by AISD.TV, the school district's television station, students can also be seen playing instruments and dancing in the parade:

The Austin ISD also pledged this year to make pro-LGBT merchandising available to students in schools. In March, the district also distributed a "guide of suggested activities" to each campus and invited people to participate in a series of events:

In June, they organized another series of activities for LGBT Pride Month. Those included a cross-industry roundtable on queer leadership in which they proposed a "brave space" for "inclusive dialogue" and the raising of the flag in LGBT colors.

Complaints on social media

"As a member of the House Public Education committee I heard all session how 'underfunded' public schools were," Texas House Rep. Brian Harrison said before noting:

Harrison was responding to a post by the family rights organization Texas Family Project, which questioned what academic advantage it would give students, whether the event would have "grown naked men prancing in front of children" and how much public money would be spent.

Austin ISD acknowledges on its website that the "majority of our funding comes from local property taxes along with state and federal funding."

In that same vein, reporter Tayler Hansen wondered why a school district was "taking children to a pride parade":

The official state GOP account also asked why schools are using public funds to sexualize children:

Other users on the social network X joined in the criticism, inciting parents to pull their children out of public schools: