"There's Nothing Pro-Family About Denying Children Healthcare"
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott trolls for votes by bullying transgender children
TV personality Andy Cohen tore into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday for directing state agencies to treat gender-affirming care for children as child abuse.
The “Watch What Happens Live” host named Abbott as his “Jackhole of the Day,” slammed him as a “bully” for “picking on vulnerable children” with the anti-transgender policy, and urged Texans to vote against Abbott in November “like your life depends on it because, for a lot of transgender kids in Texas, it does.” Abbott will face Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the general election after Tuesday’s primary.
Cohen slammed Abbott’s order for going “against the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and everyone who knows that gender-affirming care reduces emotional distress and the risk of suicide in kids who identify as transgender.”
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but there is nothing pro-family about denying children medical care and threatening to rip them from their homes and families,” he added. “To transgender youth in Texas, you belong and I stand with you.”
There are many things about Republicans I can’t stand or even understand, but the one thing that gets me is abject cruelty, primarily when directed at children. In this case, it’s directed at transgender children by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who seems hell-bent on proving his asshole bona fides.
For whatever reason, Right-wingers in Texas have their panties in a wad over transgender people, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with them. So yes, Texas’ version of the “party of small government” is all atwitter over gender-affirming health care.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently published a legal opinion in which he said that “gender-affirming treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies, constitute child abuse.”
This opinion might be valid if doctors or parents forced such treatment upon a child, but that isn’t how the process works. Instead, it’s voluntary treatment requested by a family in consultation with a qualified doctor. That’s why it’s called “gender-affirming” treatment.
Seeking to bolster his argument, Paxton paid particular attention to more invasive surgical interventions, ignoring the fact that U.S. medical guidelines largely prohibit such operations on anyone younger than 18.
Abbott cited Paxton’s opinion in a letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), warning that any licensed professional who has “direct contact with children” could face criminal charges for failing to report these treatments as child abuse.
Yes, gender reassignment surgery does require one to be an adult. Still, if you focus on Paxton’s opinion, you could be forgiven for thinking there’s an epidemic of such surgeries being performed on minors. That’s not the case.
Paxton’s opinion is a monument to misinformation. The focus on minor children is limited to puberty blockers and hormone therapies, which are considered gender-affirming and, in some cases, essential to a child’s mental health.
Major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, regard both therapies as highly beneficial in the treatment of gender dysphoria, and leading pediatric groups routinely criticize anti-trans bills that block access to gender-affirming medical care as harmful to children.
Truthfully, Abbott’s order and Paxton’s legal opinion have nothing to do with “child abuse.” If they were concerned about transgender children, they’d educate themselves about the issues they face. But, no, their efforts are meant to mollify a Right-wing base motivated by fear, hatred, and a refusal to understand anything that falls outside what they consider “normal.”
It’s hard enough to be a child. Add being transgender into that, and you have a recipe for stress of a kind no one could hope to understand. It’s why transgender kids are at a much higher risk for suicide and self-harm. Add in a gratuitously cruel Republican governor who believes that hating you is good politics, and you have a situation no child could reasonably endure.
Over Abbott’s tenure as Governor, Texas state government has grown increasingly hostile toward transgender people. The state has gone so far as to remove a webpage with resources for LGBTQ youth from the DFPS website. Instead of showing that it represents and cares about Texans- ALL Texans- Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton are mining for votes by bullying transgender children.
Pure class, eh??
Remember when the GOP claimed to be “the party of small government?” Now they’re not even bothering to pretend that they aren’t culture warriors. Instead, Evangelical Christians and the Far-Right of a party that’s already swung far to the Right have designs on turning America into a Christocratic autocracy right out of The Handmaid’s Tale. When Margaret Atwood wrote her dystopian tale, I can’t imagine she had any idea that Republicans would be attempting to turn America into Gilead during her lifetime.
Republicans are trying to establish control of female reproductive functions- up to and including the very act of sexual intercourse. They’re also working to turn the uterus into an instrument of state power.
Beyond that, they’re making abject cruelty an official instrument of state policy. Anyone who doesn’t fit within the narrow confines of what the GOP deems “acceptable” can expect to be hounded, harassed, and made to feel that they’re “less than.”
All transgender children want is to be who they genuinely believe themselves to be. And their families should be allowed to support them in whatever way they can without being investigated and harassed as “child abusers.”
Y’ALL MEANS ALL Y’ALL…and Conservative White heterosexual Christians shouldn’t be allowed to have the power to decide who’s “human” enough to be treated as such.
Hatred and cruelty shouldn’t be an instrument of state policy, not even for “the party of small government.”
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