In the latest blow to the health and well-being of transgender children in Texas, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston has stopped providing hormone therapy to trans children in the wake of Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive ordering the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families and health-care professionals who provide such gender-affirming therapy for children, claiming that such care is child abuse.
Texas Tribune reports that a Texas Children’s spokesman acknowledged that the therapy was stopped “to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications.”
The Tribune reports added that “it wasn’t immediately clear” what options these young patients have now, and that the spokesperson declined to comment on what doctors are telling patients and what impact that just stopping the treatments will have on these children.
ACLU of Texas and Lambda Legal last week filed suit on behalf of a trans teen and their family and a licensed psychologist against Abbott, DFPS and DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters as defendants. The teen’s mother works for DFPS, and when the suit — Doe v. Abbott — was filed on March 1, the family said that a DFPS investigator had already been to their home.
A Travis County judge has issued a temporary restraining order in the case that applies only to the plaintiff family, but a hearing has been set for this Friday, March 11, to consider expanding the TRO to cover all such families in Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who laid the groundwork for Abbott’s witch hunt with a non-binding — and widely-discredited — opinion on Feb. 21 claiming gender-affirming care for children is child abuse, has appealed the TRO.
— Tammye Nash
We must protect the children! No minor under 18 should be allowed to inject their body with these powerful compounds. Think back to when you were 10-18! Did you know what you truly wanted in life? No, we need to let these kids grow up before they make life altering decisions.