The state’s child welfare agency says it will begin investigating instances of transgender youth receiving gender-affirming health care as possible child abuse, after direction from Gov. Greg Abbott based on a recent legal opinion issued by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Paxton, in a non-binding opinion issued Monday, concluded that sex “reassignment surgery,” as well as hormonal medications, fall under the state’s broad definition of child abuse that includes “mental or emotional injury” as well as physical injury.
“Children and adolescents are promised relief and asked to ‘consent’ to life-altering, irreversible treatment—and to do so in the midst of reported psychological distress, when they cannot weigh long-term risks the way adults do, and when they are considered by the state in most regards to be without legal capacity to consent, contract, vote, or otherwise,” Paxton wrote in the opinion.
The immediate ramifications were unclear Tuesday, as the office’s opinions are not law but rather interpretations of law. The Texas Department of Family Protective Services has said previously that it would deem some types of transgender health care as potential child abuse, but a spokesman said Tuesday that there are no pending cases.
The opinion runs contrary to the recommendations of the largest professional medical organizations’ in the state and nation. If it were to be adopted statewide, it would make Texas one of the most restrictive states in the nation for transgender youth seeking medical treatment.
Despite Paxton’s focus on surgery, that medical option is not recommended for patients who are under their country’s legal age of maturity, which is 18 in the United States, and who have not “lived continuously for at least 12 months in the gender role that is congruent with their gender identity,” according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, which advises doctors on best practices.
DFPS said Tuesday its Child Protective Investigations unit would look into any future allegations.
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Already there are signs that the policy will be challenged.
Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee, whose office represents the state in civil child abuse cases in the county, said Tuesday that his office will not adhere to guidance from Paxton and Abbott, saying they are “ignoring medical professionals and intentionally misrepresenting the law to the detriment of transgender children and their families.”
“My office will not participate in these bad faith political games,” Menefee said. “As the lawyers handling these cases, we owe a duty of candor to the courts about what the law really says. We’ll continue to follow the laws on the books — not General Paxton’s politically motivated and legally incorrect ‘opinion.’”
Just a reminder, this is happening in a state whose foster care system is so deeply fucked up that a federal judge, who has been hearing litigation over this for literally a decade, has accused that same DFPS of not being able to keep track of where the kids supposedly in its care are. The cruelty, the shameful pandering to slavering primary voters, the ongoing trauma being inflicted on children and their parents who have done nothing wrong, it’s so infuriating I can barely see. I wish I had something more constructive to say than we have to keep fighting, but I don’t. Slate has more.
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