Transgender Texans have become an ever-more popular target for right-wingers in recent years, including right-wing legislators in Austin who tried — and failed — in 2017 to pass anti-trans “bathroom bills” and who this year succeeded in passing bills prohibiting trans youth from playing sports on gendered teams.

Their efforts at banning gender-affirming health care for trans youth failed in the legislature this year. But transphobic extremists are working to ban effectively ban such health care by targeting health care providers and clinics that provide such care with protests and threats and labeling gender-affirming health care for young people as “child abuse.”

It appears their strategy is working.

Renee Baker, LPC

In November, as the Texas Tribune reported, the GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support program at Children’s Medical Center — commonly known as GENECIS — was formally dissolved “after becoming the target of conservative criticism.” Dallas Morning News reported this week on the decision, saying that the clinic is cutting care to transgender kids and halting hormone treatments for new patients.

The move came, as the Tribune reported in November, less than two months after Children’s Medical Center officials told a local website that the program, which offered mental health services and hormone treatments for trans children, was “vital for young people with gender dysphoria.” Those same hospital officials, at the time, proudly noted that GENECIS was the first program of its kind in the Southwest and that it reduced the “significant suffering and extraordinarily high suicide” rates among transgender kids.

Now hospital officials — who shut the program down with no public announcement — are claiming it was necessary to dissolve the program to protect the privacy of the patients and their parents, while promising that current patients would continue to receive treatment through “specialty departments.” But they will accept no new patients.

Trans people and their supporters, though, believe the “privacy” argument is just a wispy smoke screen trying to hide the fact that they are caving to political pressure from extremists and anti-trans lawmakers threatening Children’s Medical Center’s public funding.

Renee Baker, a licensed professional counselor specializing in working with transgender individuals and herself a trans woman, is among those.

Baker this week agreed to answer some questions for Dallas Voice regarding the clinic and the right wing’s campaign against transgender people.

 

Dallas Voice: Speaking from your perspective as, first a transgender person, and as a counselor, what message is this sending? Renee Baker: When the GENECIS program originally opened, we were so happy to have local medical doctors that were brave enough to open their arms and welcome the transgender youth community.  It meant “We believe in you; we know you need help, and we are here to assess and treat your medical needs.” And now that the program is closed, it sends a message to kids that they should go back into a closet.

As adults, we can recognize this for what it is — politics. But to kids, this brings on despair, hopelessness and, worst of all, shame. Where is the transgender Pride flag being flown letting them know they are valued, loved and safe?

 

What kind of impact will this decision have on those trans youth already in the program, and on those who will be denied the opportunity because of this ? My hope is that the hospital’s pediatric endocrinology team will continue to treat existing patients, at a minimum. I know the GENECIS team itself is supportive and will do what they can. The Children’s Medical Center has not put out a statement that I know of as of yet, but the program has been gone from their website since late October.

For older adolescent trans youth ages 16 and up, there are other alternatives in the Dallas area for endocrinology treatment. But younger than that, they will likely have to go out of the Dallas area, unless there are other doctors willing to step up.

 

Talk from your perspective about elected officials using trans people as pawns to rile up their supporters and about legislators playing politics with people’s lives. The Texas GOP takes an increasingly extreme platform position that transgender and nonbinary individuals do not exist.  Their position is that God created man and woman and there are only two biological genders.  Hence, they oppose any type of transgender normalization.

In other words, they wish to erase the transgender community, to make us invisible.

The GOP platform in fact now includes eight new line items erasing transgenderism, from what should be the right to self-identification to the right to transitional healthcare.

The feeling I have is that the GOP is drumming up opposition to transgender health care because they believe there is some kind of transgender mania taking place. And it is contagious, like a virus, and you have to stop it. The reality is that there are just not that many teens transitioning. However, there is a greater number of teens that may identify as transgender because they want to have free gender expression.

And this is what scares the GOP because they want to control gender identities, it’s written in their platform; you can read it yourself.

The darling of the GOP right now to rile up the anti-trans movement is Abigail Shrier, a freelance journalist who writes for the Federalist, the Wall Street Journal and has been on Fox News, Tucker Carlson’s show. Her book, Irreversible Damage, paints a very negative view of the transgender community and health allies. For those GOP that want to rile up the troops, this book gives them plenty of fodder.  I

FROM THE 2020 TEXAS GOP PLATFORM:

  1. Gender Identity: The official position of the Texas schools shall be that there are only two genders: biological male and biological female. We oppose transgender normalizing curriculum and pronoun use.
  2. Gender Identity: We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity. For the purpose of attempting to affirm a person 21 or under if their perception is inconsistent with their biological sex, no medical practitioner or provider may engage in the following practices:
  3. Intervene in any way to prevent natural progression of puberty.
  4. Administer or provide opposite sex hormones.
  5. Perform any surgery on healthy body parts of the underage person.
  6. No Taxpayer Funding for Sex Change: We oppose the use of taxpayer funds for any type of medical gender dysphoria treatments or sex change operations and/or treatments. This includes but is not limited to military personnel as well as inmates in federal, state, or local prisons or jails. Inmates must be housed according to their biological sex.
  7. Counseling Methods: Therapists, psychologists, and counselors licensed with the State of Texas should not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing Reintegrative Therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction.
  8. Choice of Therapy: We affirm the right of people with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion to seek therapies to meet their purposes. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to sexual orientation change counseling or therapy to resolve gender confusion in a way that supports biological sex, for self-motivated youth and adults.
  9. No Gender Norming in Military: We oppose gender norming in the military. Transgendered persons should not serve in the military as a special class; no special considerations or medical treatment shall be required or offered.
  10. Gender Identity Facilities in Businesses: We support enacting legislation in the State of Texas ensuring that:
  11. No government entity in the state shall be allowed to take it upon itself to define for any private business or private entity how it must segregate its restrooms, changing facilities, or showers.
  12. Nor may any government agency be allowed to require businesses to profess, espouse, or adopt specific views on sex, sexuality, gender, or gender identity.
  13. Government agencies must guarantee that views and positions on these matters are not used as a basis to deny access to public accommodations, as defined by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nor to deny employment, or discriminate in employment decisions, solely on the basis of a person’s views on these matters.
  14. Gender Identity Pronouns: We oppose any attempt to criminalize and/or penalize anyone for the wrong use of pronouns.

 — Tammye Nash