#Queer people have come to expect the worst from the state’s #Republican leadership, but ahead of the upcoming legislative session they’re bracing for what could be a record-breaking wave of attacks on their rights.
Some of the most dangerous bills filed as of November target parents and medical professionals who support #trans kids and teenagers with gender-affirming medical care. It’s a continuation of a shockingly vicious policy instituted early in 2022 by Paxton and Abbott that forced child welfare agents at the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate families with trans kids as if they were potential child abusers. Even though the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays went to court and halted these abuse investigations, the directive sent DFPS into disarray and caused some families to flee the state.
Representative Bryan Slaton, the most staunchly anti-#transgender legislator of the 2021 session, is back with a bill to redefine gender-affirming care provided by medical professionals as child abuse, and other #GOP legislators have joined the effort to enshrine into law what Paxton and Abbott failed to achieve through executive decree and legal maneuvers. For example, a bill from Representative Cole Hefner would set prison sentences for parents who support their child’s gender-affirming health care, while Representative Steve Toth filed two bills penalizing insurance companies for paying for that care.
Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer), a clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s Cyberlaw Clinic who specializes in the intersection of #gender and the #law, called the situation “beyond dystopian.”
“Teachers, doctors, first responders, therapists, social workers—anyone who has a mandated reporter role around child abuse—would be required to turn in friends and family and their patients, their students, to the state,” she told the Observer.
From my analysis of upcoming attacks on #LGBTQIA rights at the #Texas Legislature, published as part of the overall #txlege preview in @TexasObserver Magazine's January/February 2023 issue (https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-legislature-preview-2023/)
(Illustration by Drue Wagner)
#drag #children #journalism #news #fascism
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