West Texas DA Opens Forgery Investigation Into Disputed Transgender Mailers
A district attorney in West Texas has opened a criminal investigation into pamphlets mailed to Texas students that purported to come from a transgender rights organization, with the inquiry focused on potential forgery. Sarah Stogner, district attorney for Loving, Reeves and Ward counties west of Odessa, told The Texas Tribune that her office is investigating the mailers as a potential forgery, a state jail felony under Texas law. Stogner said the scope of the inquiry could expand as new information emerges, though the ultimate origin of the mailers remains unknown. She also told media that the pamphlets "appear to be an attempt to anger voters ahead of the midterm elections."
The mailers, titled "Texas Trans & LGBTQ+ Student Resource Guide," were addressed to students and discussed student legal rights, emancipation and finding support outside the family. The sender listed on the envelopes, the "Texas Transgender Student Union," does not appear to exist in Texas. The Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) issued a statement denying any connection to the materials and said the pamphlets "do not represent the official position" of the organization. TENT said the mailers were sent by a dark money group created two weeks earlier as an LLC in Wyoming, mixing TENT's own materials with outside content.
Public business records show that "Texas Transgender Student Union LLC" was registered in Wyoming on September 2, 2026, using Northwest Registered Agent LLC in Sheridan, Wyoming as its registered agent — an address linked to hundreds of shell companies. Texas Observer investigative reporter Steve Monacelli first discovered the Wyoming LLC. The return address printed on the mailers, "1611 W. Airport Blvd., Suite 123, Meadows Place, Texas 77477," does not correspond to a valid address according to a U.S. Postal Service lookup tool. That address closely resembles TENT's actual mailing address, "11611 W. Airport Blvd., #180, Meadows Place, TX 77477," a private mailbox at a UPS Store in the Houston area. KPRC 2 confirmed that TENT does receive mail at that UPS Store location.
TENT said the mail campaign came days after it warned it had been impersonated in a text campaign aimed at Texas phone numbers. Those messages were sent on October 11 and 13, according to the organization. TENT said it issued a subpoena on October 14 to messaging company Peerless Network and urged the company to block any further messages falsely presented as TENT communications. According to the organization, both the flyers and the texts mixed its own materials with outside content.
State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, first sent a letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton asking his office to investigate TENT for "circumventing and violating" state law related to student-organized groups and materials taught in public schools. After the mailers surfaced, Leach followed up with a second letter asking the attorney general's office to investigate who was responsible for sending the mailers, their political affiliation and the political interests they seek to advance. Leach wrote that he had been "inundated" with complaints and said he expected "a thorough investigation regardless of who is responsible, what their political affiliation may be, or which political interests they seek to advance." Stogner's forgery investigation followed Leach's two letters. In his first letter, Leach also noted that the mailers, which were addressed to students, may have violated a Texas law forbidding school employees from assisting students with gender transition.
The Houston Chronicle reported that SnailWorks, a Maryland-based mail tracking company, confirmed it was hired to track the mailers but would not identify the client. SnailWorks' services include political mail tracking to help coordinate campaign material disbursement. The National Republican Campaign Committee is the only federal political group that has reported paying SnailWorks this election cycle, but a SnailWorks employee who answered the phone said the NRCC is not the client behind the transgender mailers. The identity of the sender remains unknown.
The brochures reached homes across Texas, including Houston, Dallas, Texarkana and Seguin. Wyoming is home to roughly 900,000 active businesses, and close to 300,000 of the state's roughly 830,000 LLCs use the Sheridan address, according to reports citing the Wyoming Secretary of State's office. Stogner said the investigation's scope could expand as new details emerge, but the origin of the mailers remains a mystery. No suspects have been charged.