Even as Pride Month kicked off in June, Texas joined 17 other states in poking its statutory nose in the midst of children, their parents, and their physicians to block legitimate medical care from kids that need it. Gov Greg Abbott signed the bill on Friday, June 2, bragging that this will stop gender-modifying surgery on children, procedures rarely performed on kids.
The bill was written by state Senator Donna Campbell, who represents Lago Vista. The new law blocks trans children from receiving treatments that many medical groups support, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies.
Conservatives nationwide are doubling down in their persecution of trans kids.
According to translegislation.com's latest post, 22 states have passed 82 anti-trans bills this year.
GOP Presidential hopeful and former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley recently blamed trans kids in sports for suicidal thoughts among cis girls.
“How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms?” Haley told NBC News in early June. “And then we wonder why a third of our teen-age girls seriously contemplated suicide last year.”
In fact, according to the National Institutes of Health, 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicide risk highest among transgender youth.
Experts pushed back hard against Haley’s remarks. Tyler Black, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who studies suicide and mental health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, tweeted, "If there is one thing that I can promise in this world, and stake my entire knowledge and expertise as a suicidologist on, it’s that young teenaged girls are not made more suicidal by the presence of trans people."
“The fear tactics being deployed against the transgender community are as cruel as they are anti-Texan. Our community is continuing to violently absorb the real-life consequences of hateful political rhetoric. We deserve to be safe, we deserve to be equal, we deserve to raise our families without harassment and threats - and we will not stop working to make that a reality,” stated Emmett Schelling, Executive Director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT).
Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, tweeted, ”Nikki Haley suggesting that a third of American teenage girls are contemplating suicide because of the existence of trans people is an unserious, untrue, and hateful thing to say. But hate is the point, isn’t it?”
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