The Texas GOP attack on trans kids reaches a horrifying new level

[Nevilledog]

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Paul Waldman
@paulwaldman1
What Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott are doing in Texas to trans kids and their families is an absolute abomination: https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/02/texas-republicans-trans-kids/…

Who could have guess that this is where being "pro-family" would end up.

washingtonpost.com
Opinion | The Texas GOP attack on trans kids reaches a horrifying new level
The "pro-family" party wants to investigate and maybe even prosecute families that give their trans kids love and support.
11:18 AM · Mar 2, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/02/texas-republicans-trans-kids/

No paywall
https://archive.fo/uQvOD

*snip*

The investigations have begun; the first was of a DFPS employee who asked her supervisor what to do about the fact that her own daughter is trans. The employee was placed on leave, then investigators showed up at her family’s door demanding her daughter’s medical records.
This has terrified families with trans kids around Texas, as The 19th, a news organization focused on gender, politics, and policy, reports:

Multiple parents of trans children told The 19th they had started gathering testimony from friends and family in case they were sued. Parents, many of whom had spoken to media in recent weeks, declined to be interviewed by The 19th, citing fears that doing so would draw attention to them. A mother sobbed on the phone as she reiterated that she was unable to talk.

“It’s as bad as it’s ever been,” said Angela Hale, a spokesperson for Equality Texas. “We have fended all of this off for a decade.”

Hale said Child Protective Services has been arriving at the homes and schools of a handful of transgender children across the state.

The ACLU has already filed suit against the governor and the head of DFPS to stop the investigations. Even if we’ve seen only a small number of investigations so far, this amounts to a campaign of terror against these families, precisely because they’re giving their kids the love and support they need to navigate an emotionally difficult process.

So the Republican policy goal has gone from “Let’s make sure no trans girl gets to play on her middle school softball team” to “Let’s see if we might be able to rip trans kids from their homes and prosecute their parents.”

*snip*

[Mad_Machine76]

1. This is horrific

I work for CPS here in Indiana, am Trans myself, and have a child who may transition. I hope that madness doesn't spread here and that the ACLU shuts this s*it right down.

[Nevilledog]

3. And it's all for politics

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J. David Goodman
@jdavidgoodman
NEW: The campaign of @GregAbbott_TX sees child abuse investigations for the parents of transgender children as a political winner

“That is a 75, 80 percent winner," says @granitewinger, his campaign strategist in a call with reporters. Says Democrats are "are out of touch.”
9:20 AM · Mar 2, 2022

[Mad_Machine76]

4. Yuck

"political winner"?! I just can't even...........

I don't even understand how this is supposed to work. So, Texas is investigating parents whom are providing gender affirming care to their children but to what end? The potential removal of the children and placement in foster care with no access to said care? And then what? Parents will have to prove they will deny their children gender affirming care in order to get their children back? This is nuts and has to run afoul of a few constitutional provisions. No matter what Abbott or Paxton say, there's no way they can prove in court that gender affirming care harms children (quite the opposite, in fact). How are Judges going to handle these cases if they wind up before them?!

[IngridsLittleAngel]

17. I have to disagree, Nevilledog. It's not for politics.

The fact it's a "75%, 80% winner" is icing on the cake. But this is for cruelty and bigotry. The main goal is to inflict pain and terror upon one of the most vulnerable segments of our nation. They get off on this. I've seen it. I've seen it for 30 years. From the "friends" who destroyed my reputation and made my life hell, to the "even better friends" who thought they'd "beat the homo out of me" (literally), to the two methed-out "relatives" who tried to kill me... These monsters get their jollies off of mentally and physically harming trans people. "It's like gay bashing, but better!"

Even if someone told these Nazi thugs "This is a 30%, 35% winner", they'd still do it. Maybe a little more subtle and a little less blatant. Maybe with the goal being to exterminate the trans community in 10 years instead of 1. But they'd do it. The fucking cruelty is the fucking point. Politics doesn't matter. When they win, they see it as a mandate to terrorize transgenders. When they lose, they terrorize transgenders as "payback" for "stealing the election!"

In fact, I am sorry to say, you have the cart before the horse here. They don't attack the trans community and spew racism and bigotry "to win." They win so they can gain power to attack the trans community and spew racism and bigotry.

This is their fucking platform. This is all they have. Truthfully, this is all they have fucking had for a long time... They just don't bother to put on a mask anymore.

[Nevilledog]

18. Cruelty is their definition of politics.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

20. Yes it is...

And it's been the case since... At least 1994, with Newt's Contract ON America. Maybe further back than that.

I know I was seeing a lot of crazy and a lot of evil in mass emails on BBS's as back as when Bill Clinton won the election (gee, does that sound familiar?) When these goons realized that, no, the White House is not exclusively theirs, they went bonkers.

[dlk]

2. Republicans require someone to hate

It’s in their DNA.

[andym]

5. GOP has hitched their wagon to culture wars

"Foxaganda" news and their ilk are the amplifiers.

[Solly Mack]

6. They remove kids from a caring environment and place them into the homes of the cruel,

there will be untold damage done to the children.

Not that the GOP cares.

It's already horrific and terrifying now. It will get worse if this isn't stopped.

[Hekate]

7. Their cruelty to the most vulnerable is breathtaking...

I don’t even have words for how evil this is.

[Gaugamela]

8. Family separation is their game plan, IMHO. If the fascists take over in the next decade I would

expect them to remove kids from the custody of gay parents, and to eventually go after the kids of leftists, dissidents, and other political enemies. Imagine your children placed in Christian fundamentalist homes for re-education.

[Delmette2.0]

10. Worse than a fundamentalist home would be

A fundamentalist re-education camp.

[CrackityJones75]

19. TomAYto TomAHto

[XacerbatedDem]

9. Texas is just pushing their religion off on everyone in their state.

I am not against them seceding from the union, the planet or the solar system. And take Lyin' Ted and that idiot "HEY" Abbot with you.

[Cozmo]

11. I'm with you, let'em go!

[cab67]

12. this will all have to end at some point.

That this is disgusting and inhuman goes without saying, but it's also going to end up costing Texas' economy.

If they keep doing shit like this, people are going to leave the state, and employers will have an increasingly difficult time recruiting people. I already know two people who are giving second-thought to tenure-track faculty lines in the state; such positions are as rare as rooster teeth, but they would come at the cost of living in Texas.

I went to grad school in Austin, so I know there are lots of thoroughly decent people there. Unfortunately, they're not in charge, and they're not going to be in charge in the foreseeable future. If I were still there, I'd be thinking of getting out.

There's going to come a time at which the cost of being a 16th century exclave will exceed whatever benefits crazy people seem to think come from that status.

[Demovictory9]

13. Ugly and scary

[NoMoreRepugs]

14. My hatred for these people continues to grow, honestly didn't think it was possible.

[soldierant]

15. If I were a Texan parent of a trans ciild, I'd be moving out of Texas NOW.

And my heart goes out to those who, for whatever reason, are not in a position to do so.

I find it terrifying that this is becoming such a huge thing now. It's not as if it were a new phenomenon - there have always been trans people. The only thing that's new is gender-affirming medical treatment - and that's darned near a hundred years old. Christine Jorgensen was far from the first. Doctors in Germany were working with hormones in the 1920's

Fundamentalists claim to believe every word, every sy;;able of the Bible. But they certainly don't seem to get Isaiah 55:8-9 or Romans 11:34 Or chapter 10 of Acts.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

16. And it'll continue to get worse.. and worse... Until people push and fight back

This is what happens when you give bigots and Nazis an inch on anything. They take a mile... Another mile.. Then reach for a light year. "But muh sprots!" "But muh restrooms!" "But muh Chappelle specials!" Thinking they've "won" on those fronts, now they're going directly after trans teens and trying to break up families.

Mr. Waldman, I hope you were being sarcastic calling them the "pro-family" party. Because they are not. And never have been. They were terrorizing gay families for many years before this. But now they've moved on from LGB's (for now) and are punching down hard on the T's. And they'll punch some more. And punch some more until they get punched back.

These fuckers live for this. They live to inflict pain. The more vulnerable, therefore the easier to hurt, the better. The goal is to destroy the lives of trans people (even "the children!" we're all supposed to think about) and tear apart families. And you dare support trans people? Misery for you too!

My advice to the parents of trans kids in Texas: GET OUT. ASAP. Until you do, be prepared to lawyer up (ACLU, Lambda, both). And these jackboots demanding medical records? Re-fucking-fuse unless they present a legal order. And then, lawyer the fuck up! Push the fuck back, and push back hard.

This is America, not Nazi Germany. Fuck Texas Nazis. And I refuse to say "Heil Abbott" or "Heil Paxton".

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. These attacks are sickening