“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly.”
If you were on Tumblr in 2015, you probably know this is the first line of Bee Movie. Years after its release, the animated film starring Jerry Seinfeld entered internet memedom when pranksters started posting the entirety of its script online. At the time, New York Magazine called it “the best prank on Facebook right now."
Now the joke is back in an unexpected place — as part of a spamming effort targeting the state’s driver’s license office.
Last month, the Texas Department of Public Safety changed its policy regarding the sex listed on driver’s licenses. Texans had previously been able to change the listed sex by presenting the agency with an order from a judge. Now, drivers will not be able to change the sex on their licenses unless it is to fix a clerical error.
Part of the policy change involved the agency setting up an internal email address. Employees were instructed to email this address any time an individual uses a court order to request to update the sex listed on their driver’s license. The email should include the requestor’s name and ID number and the subject line “Sex Change Court Order,” agency instructions said.
The policy change was a major blow for transgender Texans who want their identification documents to match their gender identity. They expressed concern over the new email address as well, and accused the state of attempting to track transgender people.
An agency spokesperson said the policy change was made after the Office of the Attorney General raised questions about the legality of these court orders, but has not answered questions about privacy concerns.
In an attempt to learn more about how and why the change was made, The Texas Newsroom requested all the messages sent to the new internal email.
In response, the agency released more than 700 pages of emails.
It appears just one of the emails was an internal communication noting an employee had received a request to change the sex listed on a driver’s license. The rest, more than 80 messages, were from people critical of the policy change, including hundreds of pages of what look like spam.
Johnathan Gooch, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ rights group Equality Texas, said members of the queer community online came up with the idea of spamming the agency after The Texas Newsroom broke the story about the policy change on August 21. While the email address itself was not published, and it was clearly meant for internal use only, screenshots of an agency message that included the address were shared online.
“The Texas LGBTQIA+ community was scared and angry. Spamming the [Department of Public Safety] email seems like a natural extension of the frustration that the whole community is experiencing,” Gooch said.
He added Equality Texas was not behind the effort, and said it did not appear that any other single group spearheaded it.
It’s unclear whether the amount of spam the agency received affected its ability to track the new policy change.
The records show that in the days following the policy change, the Department of Public Safety was signed up for PETA’s newsletter and emails from the Krazy Coupon Lady. The address received emails from QueerMeNow, a gay pornography blog, and Lovehoney, a British company that sells adult toys and lingerie.
Someone requested a quote to ship a 2024 Bentley Eight from Columbus, Ohio, to Huntsville, Alabama, from a logistics company. According to the company’s CEO, the requestor provided a number with a Florida area code and a familiar name: Greg Abbott.
A half dozen emails were just copies of the Bee Movie script.
One email read: “oh no someone is spamming your gestapo list wow.”
There were those folks who wanted to lodge their complaints about the policy change more directly, the records show. In emails, they described the new policy as “evil” and “weird.” They called the agency employee on the receiving end of their emails a “good little Nazi” and “a disgrace in the eyes of God.”
Several sent the same message, reading, “You are an abomination. An utter and complete disappointment and failure.”
Another was filled with racist slurs.
The Department of Public Safety redacted the senders’ email addresses.
“The ‘small government state’ when they compile a secret list of trans people,” one person wrote. Another pleaded, “stop destroying our lives please.” A third person, who wrote they do not in Texas, said, “That's some fascist nonsense if i've ever seen it.”
One email had the subject line, “All Cowboys Are Gay.”
The body read, “what I said.”
