Texas District Attorneys Slam Governor’s “Cruel” Directive On Trans Youth Care: “We Are Deeply Disturbed”
February 27, 2022Five district attorneys in Texas have hit back against Governor Greg Abbott’s directive on trans youth health care, calling the move “un-American.”
On Tuesday, the Republican governor ordered state agencies to conduct a “prompt and thorough” investigation into gender-affirming care for trans youth.
His directive came just days after the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, issued an opinion stating that such “procedures and treatments” could legally constitute “child abuse when performed on minor children.”
On Thursday, in an open letter shared on social media, district attorneys of five of the state’s most populated counties – Dallas, Bexar, Travis, Fort Bend, and Nueces – strongly condemned “Abbott and Paxton’s anti-trans and life-threatening directives.”
“We are deeply disturbed by Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton’s cruel directives treating transgender children’s access to life-saving, gender-affirming care as ‘child abuse,’” the DAs wrote.
“This is part of a continued onslaught on personal freedoms. Elected officials should be protecting our most vulnerable. These two, instead, want to irrationally target and restrain children seeking medical assistance – and force caregivers to participate,” the letter added.
Slamming the directive as “un-American,” the district attorneys said that they “cannot stand silent in the face of such an egregious invasion of privacy.”
As MSN reports, the DAs were referring to a letter addressed to the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, in which Abbott directed the agency “to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.”
He wrote that “doctors, nurses, and teachers” who failed to report alleged instances of abuse could face legal consequences. “There are similar reporting requirements and criminal penalties for members of the general public,” he added.
In their open letter to the governor and the state’s attorney general, the five DAs said that they “will enforce the Constitution and not irrationally and unjustifiably interfere with medical decisions made between children, their parents, and their medical physicians.”
They also had a message for the state’s trans kids and their families.
“We want to assure our residents with transgender children that they are safe to continue seeking the care their children need. We will not allow the governor and attorney general to disregard Texan children’s lives in order to score political points,” they wrote.
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