A district judge has placed a temporary block on the state of Texas investigating the parents of children who receive gender-altering medical treatment.
Gov. Greg Abbott called on the Department of Family and Protective Services to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” into parents who seek trans treatment for their kids. He added that the state law “provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse.”
On Friday, district judge Amy Clark Meachum put a temporary state-wide injunction on the law and said it would remain in place until a final decision was made. A trial will begin on July 11.
The judge went on to say that Abbott’s bill was “unconstitutional” and he had overstepped his authority.
The bill polarized opinions, with many suggesting that children should not be able to make life-changing decisions to alter their bodies which they may later regret.
The ruling to suspend the bill came on the same day 60 major companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft composed a joint statement condemning the bill and said the state should “abandon efforts to write discrimination into law”.
The letter has the title ‘Discrimination is bad for business’, perhaps designed as a subtle hint that the state choosing not to comply with its suggestions may result in the companies shunning Texas in the future.
“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” it reads.
“This policy creates fear for employees and their families, especially those with transgender children, who might now be faced with choosing to provide the best possible medical care for their children but risk having those children removed by child protective services for doing so. It’s not just wrong, it has an impact on our employees, our customers, their families, and our work.”
The bill says that parents who put kids through body-altering procedures, which it deems “child abuse”, could have their children removed from their care and even sent to jail.
There have been countless stories about people, including impressionable kids, who considered themselves ‘trans’ but later in life moved past the phase. Unfortunately, they had already received ‘Gender Reassignment’ treatments – many of which are irreversible.
Walt Heyer lived as a woman for eight years before he began to re-think his life choices – he now campaigns against adults helping kids to ‘transition’.
After Walt’s grandmother, a seamstress, made him a “chiffon dress” when he was a little boy, he now realizes how damaging the underlying message really was:
“When grandma began to tell me how cute I looked in that purple dress, what she was really saying was there was something radically wrong with the little boy that I really was and so that begins a kind of creepy phycological and emotional destruction.”
Meanwhile, Texas Democrat and gubernational candidate Beta O’Rourke branded Abbott a “thug” and said the bill designed to protect kids is “extremism and fringe politics”:
“You’re seeing the continued rise of authoritarians and thugs across the world, and we have our own right here in the state of Texas… [Greg Abbott is] a thug. He’s an authoritarian.”
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