Biden slams 'dangerous' Texas trans children investigations

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Abbott's and Paxton's attacks on medical treatment for trans children are disgusting. President Joe Biden will fight this attempt to hurt these children

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President Joe Biden and the Department of Health and Human Services say they’re taking steps to support transgender children, families and health care providers in the wake of Texas’ recent plan to investigate some parents of transgender children. Biden condemned the directive made by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, calling it “a cynical and dangerous campaign” to “score political points.”

Last month, Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who get their transgender children gender-affirming medical care. Under the recommendation – not an executive order or official law – these parents could be investigated and convicted of child abuse.

In a statement Wednesday, Biden said:

“Like so many anti-transgender attacks proliferating in states across the country, the Governor’s actions callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points. These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.”

[IngridsLittleAngel]

1. Thank you, President Biden

I'm glad you're in our corner.

Let's go Joe!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. The child welfare system already hurts trans kids. Texas made it a nightmare.

Abbott and Paston are intentionally hurting vulnerable children

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Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered Texas’s child welfare agencies to investigate parents whose children receive gender-affirming health care, and threatened them and professionals who fail to report it with criminal prosecution. This contradicts the position of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical associations, which strenuously oppose government restrictions on children’s access to these services. In some respects, Texas follows a nationwide trend: Republican lawmakers in at least 27 states have introduced legislation to limit transgender and gender-diverse youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care, participating in school activities and using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

In Texas, several bills to ban medical care for transgender children have failed, and so the government has turned to a more sinister tactic: interpreting the definition of child abuse to encompass gender-affirming medical treatment, and exploiting the child protection system to intimidate and control families. Though state officials claim to be acting to protect the health and safety of children, throwing them into the child welfare system only would endanger them. Child welfare authorities largely stand indifferent to the dehumanizing practices that endanger gay and transgender children in their care, and even implement rules that encourage those practices.......

Abbott’s move to punish parents who violate the state’s prescribed gender norms reflects the overall design of child protective services and its regulation of families. The directive’s veneer of benevolence, covering for its harmful objective, is not an aberration. Rather, it is a central feature of the child welfare system — a multibillion-dollar apparatus that controls marginalized families, especially those that are Black and Native, by taking their children away. Relying on vague state child neglect laws, investigators often deem conditions of poverty — lack of food, insecure housing, inadequate medical care — as evidence of parental unfitness. Only 17 percent of children enter foster care based on allegations they were physically or sexually abused. With the Texas directive, and in the child welfare system generally, what constitutes child abuse is subject to the interpretation of mandated reporters and caseworkers whose perceptions are influenced by racial and class biases.

Abbott’s deployment of the child welfare system will punish parents for affirming their children’s gender identities, not protect children. And this tactic should cause the public to question more broadly how other struggling families are harmed by a system that polices rather than supports them.

[Hekate]

3. Joe has a good heart

[moondust]

4. WWPD?

What Would Putin Do?

Totalitarian Texas

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Yes the crazies put out their nonsense and after it circulates a week or so

Biden steps up with his sane perspective and common sense and makes them look ridiculous. They are destroying themselves and giving Biden great opportunity, and he is banking it.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Biden administration rips Abbott order on transgender care, vows to take action if needed

Joe Biden and his administration are doing what they can to protect trans children from Greg'a and Paxton's plans to punish and hurt these children

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In response to Abbott's directive, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance telling all 50 states that it is illegal to deny health care based on gender identity and to restrict how doctors provide care because of a patient’s gender identity.

"The Texas government’s attacks against transgender youth and those who love and care for them are discriminatory and unconscionable," agency Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday night in releasing the guidance.....

Becerra also announced several steps that his agency is taking to counter Abbott's Feb. 22 order that directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to launch child abuse investigations over reports of minors receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy and other gender-affirming care.

Those steps included:

• Distributing guidance directing all state child welfare agencies to protect and support LGBTQ youth, including by ensuring access to gender-affirming care.

• Distributing guidance on patient privacy to clarify that, "despite the Texas government’s threat, health care providers are not required to disclose private patient information related to gender-affirming care."

• Making additional resources available to help Texas families and health care providers targeted for investigation under Abbott's order.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Here is more on the actions being taken by the Biden administration

The Biden administration cares about all children and these actions make me smile.

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[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. Yes, Texas is investigating parents of trans kids. We are two of them.

Abbott and Paxton have caused the parents of a trans child to be investigated, This is sickening

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently issued an opinion that gender affirming care for transgender youth constitutes “child abuse.” This is, in fact, not state law. Nonetheless, Texas Governor Greg Abbott used that opinion to require teachers and others to report the parents of transgender youth, and he directed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate such allegations.

On Thursday Feb. 24, a statewide dragnet began. Child Protective Services (CPS) notified several parents that allegations of child abuse have been filed against them. We are among those parents. We are speaking out, because we need people to see that these illegal raids on loving families represent a tipping point. Political attacks against transgender youth have escalated over the years to bring us to this decisive moment. It is time for a national reckoning.

Nothing we say will change the minds of the authoritarians directing this horror show. We are speaking to the sympathetic majority of America. We need you to not normalize this state terrorism through your silence. Don’t just wring your hands. We need you to draw a line right here. It is not acceptable that some Americans have to flee their homes to secure their civil rights. Stop telling us to move. Help us.

We are working professionals with two happy, healthy, and kind children. We drive a minivan, volunteer, and go to church. Our son, age 14, is in gymnastics and plays the ukulele. Our daughter, age 9, is in Girl Scouts and does swimming and ballet. We have a suburban home with a pantry full of food and a trampoline in the backyard. In short, we are living our lives just like you. We are the family you would want to place a foster child with, not the family whose children should become foster kids themselves. And yet, the government is attempting to rip our family apart because we love our children unconditionally. Is this who we are, America?

[Cha]

9. Rt TY & PJB!

💙💛

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Ken Paxton (Texas) is suing Biden to prevent disruption of his cruel targeting of families of trans

This is bullshit and forum shopping. Amarillo is in a very conservative part of Texas

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[IngridsLittleAngel]

11. Yes, it is intentional. They cannot claim ignorance on this. They KNOW they are hurting kids...

And it brings them joy. They get off on this. The cruelty is the point, and these are fucking fascist monsters.

As far as the Biden administration "being ready to fight, if needed"? You're needed. We're making the call to the bullpen right now. You're needed. It's time to fight. These fuckers keep doubling and tripling down on the hatred and cruelty. They're defying you and everyone else when ordered to stop. They are going out of their way to harm trans people or get them killed, and they will not stop on their own. They won't listen to judges, they won't listen to us citizens, so it's time to act and do so carrying the weight of the federal government behind your actions.