Texas Governor Greg Abbott is one step closer to defending kids from dangerously popular gender reassignment surgery. The Republicans declared the surgery ‘child abuse’ as it poses an unnecessary risk to their lives and permanently damages their developing bodies.
This has been a long time coming from Abbott, but his motion original lay stagnant while bureaucrats worked out the details. Now the question has become, will those found guilty be held criminally responsible?
“Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott this week directed state agencies to conduct “prompt and thorough” investigations into the use of gender-affirming care for transgender children, a move that follows an opinion from the state attorney general that such treatments are a form of “child abuse.”
In a Tuesday letter to the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, Abbott cited an opinion issued Friday by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stating that certain gender-affirming treatments for transgender children — including gender reassignment surgery and puberty-blocking medications — “can legally constitute child abuse under several provisions” of state law.
Abbott wrote that the protective services agency “is responsible for protecting children from abuse,” adding in a tweet Tuesday that the agency will “refer for prosecution any such abuse.”
Transgender advocates accused Abbott and Paxton of twisting state law to meet their political goals and biases, particularly after efforts to define gender-affirming medical care as child abuse died last year in the Texas House after passage in the Senate.
“No court here in Texas or anywhere in the country has ever found that gender-affirming care can be considered child abuse,” said the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in a statement “The opinion released by Paxton cites highly partisan, outdated, and inaccurate information that ignores the consensus of every major medical association and the evidence-based and peer-reviewed standards of care.”