Texas Republicans Launch Vicious Attack Against Parents Of Transgender Kids

Texas' Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced this week that he is going to be going after parents who seek gender-affirming treatments for their children, charging them with child abuse. This would allow the state to legally take the children away from their parents, causing unimaginable emotional damage and hardship for the already at-risk youth. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins talks about this disgusting attack on individual rights and freedoms taking place under Texas' authoritarian government.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Yesterday was truly a disturbing day in the state of Texas, where you had both indicted attorney general, Ken Paxton, a point that often gets overlooked. The guy's already under indictment, uh, but he's still attorney general and still running for attorney general again this year. But you had Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general come out and make the declaration that from this point forward, his office is going to treat any gender affirming therapy or treatments that parents allow their children to get, they're going to treat that as child abuse in the state of Texas, and they will be prosecuting parents for getting gender affirming treatments, not surgery, mind you, treatments for their children. Later in the day, Republican governor Greg Abbott of Texas came out and said, yes, we are going to enforce this new rule. Let the prosecutions begin.

So here's the thing. Most gender affirming surgeries are only done on adults, right? Except of course in like extreme circumstances, are they ever done on children. What they're talking about is HRT hormone replacement therapy. What they're talking about is puberty blockers, right? Medications that these children need to be their true selves. If a parent, a supporting loving parent, says to their child, I, I, I, I, I am okay with all of this. I support you through all of this. I will do what I need to do to make my child happy. If a parent does that in the state of Texas, not only can they be prosecuted for child abuse, but under Texas child abuse laws, the child can be taken away from them. They would lose their children for being nothing more than loving and supportive parents in the state of Texas. This is without a doubt the most oppressive anti LGBTQ piece of legislation that we have seen this year.

And we have seen some doosies folks. Here in Florida, we've had some pretty horrible ones, including an amendment, by the way, that actually got stripped out of the don't say gay bill, that would've forced teachers to out their students to their parents, regardless of whether or not that child would be abused or neglected for the, by the parents as a result of that. They luckily pulled that amendment yesterday. But what's happening in Texas is going to get people killed. We're talking about a group of individuals who were already marginalized, already ostracized from communities, and they suffer significantly higher rates of self harm than the general population. And the state of Texas wants to make that worse. That's the point of all of this folks. That is the point. They want these people to do something terrible to themselves because they hate them. Hatred is ruling the Republican party today.

This has no medical basis. This isn't about parental rights, which is actually what they said, It's about parental rights. No, you're literally taking away the rights of the parent to make the decision about their children. Isn't that what Republicans have been and moaning about for the last two years during COVID? Parents know best about what they could do with their children. Texas actually has said that too, putting in their bans on mask mandates, let the parents decide. And then when it comes down to something that the parents actually should be deciding with their children, you take that right away from them.