Greg Abbott Says UN Can ‘Go Pound Sand’ After LGBTQ+ Backlash

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had a blunt response to learning that LGBTQ+ groups have written to the United Nations to complain about suffering from “systemic” discrimination in the Lone Star state.

Dismissing the international organization with a six-word post on X, formerly Twitter, Abbott wrote: “The UN can go pound sand.”

His comment comes after Texas passed a string of laws that critics consider discriminatory against LGBTQ+ people. Seven new laws in particular have drawn the ire of some gay and transgender organizations and human rights groups, which joined forces to write a letter to officials at the U.N. “to raise alarm about the deteriorating human rights situation for LGBTQIA+ persons in the state of Texas, United States of America, due to hostile rhetoric and legislation from the Texas state government.”

The letter was signed by Equality Texas, ACLU of Texas, GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. The LGBTQ+ abbreviation is used to refer to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, or other. Some groups use the term LGBTQIA+ with the I standing for intersex and the A standing for asexual.

The seven Texas laws cited in the letter as examples of LGBTQ+ discrimination are:

• Senate Bill 12, which prohibits “sexually oriented performances” on public property if audience members are under 18. Critics believe this is an attempt to target drag shows for children.
• Senate Bill 14, which bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender children.
• Senate Bill 15, which restricts transgender athlete participation in college sports.
• Senate Bill 17, which bans public universities from having diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
• Senate Bill 763, which allows schools to use religious chaplains for counseling purposes.
• House Bill 900, which allows schools to restrict access to “sexually explicit” or “vulgar” books.
• House Bill 2127, which restricts local governments from enacting non-discrimination ordinances beyond what is already expressly authorized in state law under various state codes.

“Taken individually, the seven pieces of legislation (the ‘Bills’) discussed in this submission will disrupt the lives of LGBTQIA+ people of various ages and backgrounds,” the letter to the U.N. said. “Put together, the Bills are a systemic attack on the fundamental rights, dignities, and identities of LGBTQIA+ persons that opens the gates for discrimination by both public and private actors.

The signatories concluded by asking the U.N. to “make inquiries into this backsliding of human rights” in Texas and to work with the federal government to “prevent these abuses.”

The U.N.’s website explains that the organization encourages countries to work together to find peaceful solutions to problems and aims to promote “peace, dignity, and equality on a healthy planet.”

But such lofty goals appear to mean little to Abbott. On Sunday, he took to X to share a link to a news story about the LGBTQ+ letter (which was actually sent last month), with the comment: “The UN can go pound sand.”

His post was shared more than 1,000 times, and X users were divided about his stance.

Several people appeared to agree with his sentiment, with one writing: “The US needs to cut ties with the UN.”

But others disagreed, with one person writing: “I don’t understand why you’d say something so anti-democratic,” and another questioned why he was slamming the U.N. rather than “the ones who sent the letter.”

After publishing the open letter to the U.N., the CEO of Equality Texas, Ricardo Martinez, said: “We cannot pretend to be a beacon of freedom when our state is slipping behind global human rights standards that have been in place for nearly 50 years. Our nation is only as strong as our weakest link, and right now, Texas is dragging our nation into a human rights crisis that will do more than damage our global reputation, it will harm our LGBTQIA+ neighbors at home.”

Newsweek has reached out to Abbott and the U.N. seeking comment on the letter.

It isn’t just Texas that is grappling with LGBTQ+ issues. The rest of the U.S. is also seeing an increasingly bitter social debate about the rights of gay and transgender people, particularly relating to trans athletes’ inclusion in women’s sports.

Companies and brands that worked with the LGBTQ+ community over the past 12 months have been hit by boycotts, such as beer brand Bud Light, which was engulfed in a social media firestorm for featuring a transgender woman in an ad campaign. While drag storytime events aimed at children have also been hit by demonstrations.