LGBTQ RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
STATE TERRORISM
Texas loses appeal over investigation of trans teen's family
A Texas court on Wednesday tossed out the state's appeal of an order preventing child welfare officials from investigating the parents of a transgender teenager over gender-confirming care the youth received.
The Texas 3rd Court of Appeals dismissed Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's appeal of the temporary order a judge issued last week halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl.
The court ruled that the judge's temporary order was not appealable.
The parents sued over the investigation and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s order that officials look into reports of such treatments as abuse. The lawsuit marked the first report of parents being investigated following Abbott’s directive and an earlier nonbinding legal opinion by Paxton labeling certain gender-confirming treatments as “child abuse.”
The appeals court's decision clears the way for the judge to hold a hearing on whether to issue a broader temporary order blocking enforcement of Abbott’s directive.
An attorney for the parents said at a court hearing last week that he has heard of at least two other families facing DFPS abuse investigations for gender-confirming care. A Dallas-area family said the department is investigating them, The 19th, a nonprofit news organization, reported Wednesday.
Texas Children's Hospital has announced it will stop providing hormone therapies for transgender youth because of the governor's order.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the family by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal. The groups also represent a clinical psychologist who has said the governor’s directive is forcing her to choose between reporting clients to the state or losing her license and other penalties.
The ACLU urged courts to halt the “egregious government overreach" of the investigations.
“This crisis in Texas is continuing every day, with state leaders weaponizing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families, invade their privacy, and trample on the rights of parents simply for providing the best possible health care for their kids under the guidance of doctors and medical best practices," Brian Klosterboer, ACLU of Texas attorney, said in a statement.
The governor’s directive and Paxton’s opinion go against the nation’s largest medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which have opposed Republican-backed restrictions on transgender people filed in statehouses nationwide. A federal judge last year blocked an Arkansas law prohibiting gender-confirming care for minors, and the state is appealing that decision.
President Joe Biden last week condemned Abbott’s directive and announced steps his administration was taking to protect transgender youth and their families in the state.
AMERIKAN FASCISM
Idaho bill would make medical treatment for trans youth punishable by life in prison
Wed, March 9, 2022
Idaho's state House of Representatives has approved the most far-reaching bill yet to criminalize medical treatments for transgender youth, a measure that threatens anyone who facilitates that treatment - or even helps a minor travel to another state to receive gender-affirming care - to be sentenced to life in prison.
The measure, approved Tuesday on a mostly party-line vote, adds medical care for transgender youth to a section of Idaho law already on the books that bans female genital mutilation.
It adds language making it a felony either to perform gender-affirming surgery on transgender youth or to provide medication meant to block or delay the onset of puberty.
The existing law already makes a felony of anyone who takes a child from Idaho to another state for the purpose of female genital mutilation; the new language would add transporting someone across state lines for gender-affirming medical care to the felony list.
Similarly, the new language would make either providing gender-affirming medical care or transporting a child to another state to receive that care a felony punishable by up to life in prison.
"This bill is about protecting children, which is a legitimate state interest. We do that all of the time," the bill's lead sponsor, state Rep. Bruce Skaug (R), said on the House floor. "We need to stop sterilizing and mutilating children under the age of 18. This bill is not about the adults or adult trans community at all. It is about children."
Skaug compared transgender medical treatment to allowing children to get tattoos or drink alcohol.
But transgender rights advocates point to specific provisions that include medicine meant to block or delay puberty as evidence that the bill goes far beyond a ban on surgery. Trans children are at far higher risk of suicide and suicidal ideation than cisgender children - a risk that can be significantly lowered with gender-affirming health care, according to a recent study.
Groups like the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have opposed less far-reaching measures that have been introduced in other states in recent months.
"These bills do nothing to invest and protect Idaho youth and families, and Idahoans deserve better," said Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Criminalizing health care for transgender adolescents is counter to science, medicine and ethics and we stand ready to fight any attack on transgender youth and their families."
One Republican, state Rep. Fred Wood (R) - the only physician serving in the state House - voted with Democrats against the bill.
The bill moves to the state Senate, where Republicans also hold an overwhelming majority. But Idaho's state Senate, considered the more centrist of the two legislative bodies, has often clashed with the House in recent years, making its passage far from certain.
The state Senate has passed a bill to end this year's session on Friday, March 25.
Idaho's bill is one of dozens of measures related to transgender youth that have been introduced in Republican-led legislatures across the country this year, and 25 that target medical treatment for transgender people specifically. Legislators in Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky and New Hampshire are all considering multiple bills related to transgender medical care.
It is not certain that those measures will stand up to scrutiny. Strangio, of the ACLU, pointed to an Arkansas law that was blocked by a judge earlier this year. A Texas judge last week put on hold a state agency's move to investigate the mother of a transgender girl under orders from Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
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