Parents of children with behavioral issues who have undergone “gender-transitioning procedures” are on Governor Greg Abbott’s mind. On Tuesday, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the state’s child protection agency, to investigate families that allow their children to undergo hormone therapy or other gender transition procedures out of concern that they may be doing so on behalf of their parents or guardians.
On July 15, 2018, a Texas child welfare agency received Dr. Daniel Weltz Abbott’s letter to them in the mail. The state Attorney General, a Republican named Ken Paxton, published an opinion that hormone replacement therapies and similar procedures are now considered child abuse under existing Texas legislation the same day. Some youngsters may be compelled to undergo life-altering treatments without fully comprehending the ramifications of their decisions, according to lawmakers in Texas.
“I hereby direct your agency (the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services [DFPS]) to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas,” Abbott’s staff wrote in the missive.
The letter reads: “Texas law also imposes a duty on DFPS to investigate the parents of a child who is subjected to these abusive gender-transitioning procedures, and on other state agencies to investigate licensed facilities where such procedures may occur… To protect Texas children from abuse, DFPS and all other state agencies must follow the law as explained (by the Office of the Attorney General).”
President Joe Biden is fighting back on behalf of the federal government and other authorities are fighting back, too, including Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. The Biden administration condemned the Texas governor’s plan to regulate people as needles and weapons of mass destruction.
“Conservative officials in Texas and other states across the country should stop inserting themselves into health care decisions that create needless tension between pediatricians and their patients,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told the Dallas Morning News. “No parent should face the agony of a politician standing in the way of accessing life-saving care for their child.”
Prominent transgender figures, including Vice Admiral Rachel L. Levine, who serves as Biden’s assistant secretary for health, have also voiced their disapproval of Abbott’s plan to ban minors from undergoing gender transitions until they reach the age of eighteen.
“Our nation’s leading pediatricians support evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender young people. HHS stands with transgender youth and their medical providers,” said Levine to Morning News.
Nonetheless, Abbott intends to go ahead with his prohibition on transgender treatment for youngsters. In his letter, he wrote: “it is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen.”
Do you think that Texas’s transgender children should be permitted to have their gender assigned at birth changed through medical procedures?
