February 2022.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate parents who allow gender-affirming health care.
They say it falls under a new interpretation of child abuse.
Many transgender kids and their families in Texas may become targets.
The Texas Legislature already tried to ban transgender kids from accessing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries with two failed bills in 2021.
Those bills sought to charge parents with child abuse for letting their kids access treatments that the medical community largely agrees can be lifesaving.
Trans kids face higher rates of suicide, anxiety, gender dysphoria, and mental health issues, that could get better after starting hormone therapy.
Now, instead of passing a new bill, they are trying to interpret existing laws in a new way - considering these treatments child abuse, as gender-affirming surgery constitutes (genital) mutilation.
District attorneys in some blue counties will likely refuse to prosecute parents or clinics. While there are yet no real, live people involved, this may force trans kids, already an invisible minority, to hide even further to protect their families from legal actions and allegations of child abuse.
A study from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that transgender people who began hormone treatment in adolescence had fewer thoughts of suicide, were less likely to experience major mental health disorders and had fewer problems with substance abuse than those who started hormone later in life.
FYI - back in April 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/20/texas-transgender-health-care-restrictions/
- House Bill 1399, advanced by the House Public Health Committee, would prohibit health care providers and physicians from performing gender confirmation surgery or prescribing, administering, or supplying puberty blockers or hormone treatment to anyone under the age of 18.
https://openstates.org/tx/bills/87/HB1399/
- Senate Bill 1311, by Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, advanced by the Senate State Affairs Committee, passed with 18-13 vote and then failed in the House - would revoke the medical license of health care providers and physicians who perform such procedures or prescribe such drugs or hormones to people younger than 18.
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