Courtney Balcombe

Creative Editor

clb6264@psu.edu

According to The New York Times, Abbott told state health agencies in Texas on February 22 that medical treatments provided to transgender adolescents, widely considered to be the standard of care in medicine, should be classified as “child abuse” under existing state law. His statements, made in a letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, DFPS, followed an opinion on February 15 by Attorney General Ken Paxton that said providing medical treatments like puberty-suppressing drugs and hormones to transgender teenagers should be investigated as child abuse.

In Abbot’s letter, he shared that the “DFPS is responsible for protecting children from abuse. I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.”

However, this is not the first time Abbott has brought this bill to the Texas legislature. According to NBC News, the issue has been part of a months-long back-and-forth between Paxton, Abbott and the DFPS after the state legislature in 2021 failed to pass a bill that would’ve made providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony alongside physical and sexual abuse and sex trafficking. 

According to childwelfare.gov, at the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, CAPTA, has defined child abuse and neglect as “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caregiver that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act that presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”

Paxton and supporters of restrictions on gender-affirming care argue that gender-affirming care is “experimental,” and that minors are too young to consent to such care. According to NBC News, advocates note that the efforts fly in the face of guidance from all relevant major medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association — which say that gender-affirming care is medically necessary for transgender youth and is backed by decades of research. 

Adri Pèrez, who uses gender-neutral pronouns,they/them, is a policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQ+ equality at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, shared that said Paxton’s opinion is politically motivated. They also noted that the Attorney General released the opinion just ahead of the state’s March 1 Republican primary election.

“Ken Paxton’s thoughts on this, no matter what they are, do not affect how a court would or should analyze these issues,” Adri Pèrez said. “And as of today, there’s no court in Texas or the entire country that has ever found that gender-affirming care can constitute child abuse.”

Pèrez said this bill could lead to some scary consequences for LGBTQ+ youth since there is a section that explicitly states “that it is mandatory for teachers, social workers and others of their duty to report child abuse.”

“Even though the opinion is not binding,” Pèrez said. “Some people could point to this opinion as a reason to report, and that could increase the number of false reports that we see being done on parents, it could increase bullying and harassment in schools directed toward trans youth, and bullying and harassment directed to their parents and guardians.”

Abbott’s effort to criminalize medical care for transgender youth is a new front in a broadening political drive to deny treatments that help align the adolescents’ bodies with their gender identities and that have been endorsed by major medical groups. While several bills against gender-affirming care were also introduced in Texas, none of them passed. Facing political pressure, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas closed the state’s only multidisciplinary clinic for transgender youth in November 2021.

Many professional medical groups, as well as transgender health experts, have condemned the legal attempts to limit “gender-affirming” care and state that they would greatly harm transgender youth.

Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Biden administration’s highest-ranking pediatrician, said in a statement. “Gender-affirming care for transgender youth is essential and can be lifesaving. Our nation’s leading pediatricians support evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender young people.”

While it is still unclear if children will be taken away from their parents for supporting their decisions, it will ultimately be left up to the courts to decide.

“At this moment, it’s unclear what child protective services, prosecutors and judges are going to do with this non binding opinion from the attorney general,” stated Kate Murphy, Senior Policy Associate for child protection at Texans Care for Children, a nonprofit children’s policy group. “What is clear is that politicians should not be tearing apart loving families — and sending their kids into the foster care system — when parents provide recommended medical care that they believe is in the best interest of their child.”