Gender-Affirming Health Care — March 2, 2022 Round-Up

Alison

5 min readMar 3, 2022

A lot happened today.

Image summarizing this round-up post.The background is a black and white picture of a folded newspaper. It says “Court Injunction in TX. Biden & HHS statements. Alabama’s felony ban on health care for trans people up to 19 passed hours committee. Already passed senate.”

The President Spoke Out

Screenshot of the first of three tweets by President Joe Biden saying “In recent days, elected leaders in Texas have launched a cynical and dangerous campaign targeting transgender children and their parents. These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.” [tweet link][POTUS Statement]

Screenshot of the second of three tweets from @POTUS that says “The Department of Health and Human Services has announced several actions to keep transgender children in Texas and their families safe — putting the state of Texas on notice that their discriminatory actions put children’s lives at risk. [tweet link]

Screenshot of the third of three tweets by @POTUS that says “In the United State of America, we respect the rights and dignity of all families. Jill and I stand with the incredibly brave transgender children, their parents, and families around the country, and we will continue to fight for a future where all children can thrive.” [tweet link]

The President’s statement was tweeted out at 8:49 PM Eastern time. It linked to the Health and Human Services(HHS) Department statement “Reaffirming HHS Support and Protection for LGBTQI+ Children and Youth.” Within it HHS Secretary Becerra announced the release of three guidance documents for state child welfare agencies, the start of an exploration of “all options” to protect Texans, and encouraged those “targeted [by the TX Governor order] to contact our Office of Civil Rights”.

HHS Secretary Becerra also tweeted today that these attacks on trangender youth are “unconscionable”. From the Press Secretary of the National Women’s Law Center: “Important context to remember: Becerra was previously himself an Attorney General, one who frequently led legal cases against the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back trans rights.” [tweet]

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a “proud mom of a trans kid” is grateful for the @POTUS steps. [tweet]

Alabama

ACLU Alabama expands that these bills would “make it a felony to provide healthcare to trans youth” and “force school personnel to out trans youth”. [tweet]. More specifically, anyone who “causes them” to obtain it.” [tweet]

Alabama SB184 cites the fact that “minors who are placed on puberty blockers that inhibit their bodies from experiencing the natural process of sexual development, the overwhelming majority will continue down a path toward cross-sex hormones and cosmetic surgery.” Erin, a mother, Deacon, and “weather nerd” pointed out that: “Doctors are diagnosing it so carefully and correctly that 99% of those on blockers continue to transition.” [tweet]

The hearing was live tweeted. [tweet]

There are 12 anti-transgender bills in this Alabama legislative session. [tweet]

Texas —Temporary Injunction Won But Only for Plaintiffs Named in This Specific Law Suit

Screenshot of tweet from Lambda Legal that says “BREAKING: A Texas District Court has granted a temporary retraining order blocking investigations or any actions against our plantiffs based on Gov. Abbot’s unlawful directive to treat medically necessary gender-affirming care as abuse.” [tweet]

The next hearing for this case is Friday, 3/11 to decide on a whether to issue a stay on all of DFPS in TX. [tweet]

TX — Politically motivated. The Houston Bureau Chief for the New York Times reported that “The campaign of Greg Abbott sees child abuse investigations for the parents of transgender children as a political winner.” [tweet] A UMich professor is “mortified” that TX AG Paxton cited her work in his Opinion to ban gender-affirming care for minors because “it does not align with her research.” [tweet based on The Star Telegram article] The Star Telegram article has more details on the AG’s Opinion being a political tool.

Utah — HB127 failed

“Utah HB127 has failed! This bill would have outlawed all transition related medical care for transgender teems and would have forced them to detransition. It was nearly as bad as the Texas law and it has failed to advance!” [tweet]

This is the third year this bill has been defeated. [tweet]

Vermont — bill introduced to protect transgender youth

Screenshot of tweet from @ErininTheMorn that says “New bill in Vermont protecting transgender teens! It allows trans teens to consent to transition medical care without parental consent. This would massively aid trans teens from non-affirming families or divorced families with one non-affirming parent.” [tweet]

Hawaii — SB2835 unanimously voted out of committee

“This bill would mandate health insurance cover factial surgery, hair removal, vocal training, etc for trans people.” [tweet]

Idaho — bill still pending, no developments

Transgender Kids and Their Parents

From The 19th’s article:

Two families are being represented by Ian Pittman, a Texas-based family attorney. He knows of at least three other families being investigated.
Child Protective Services are going to the schools of transgender children, not just their homes. [tweet]

Screenshot of tweet that says “I note that as a significant escalation because showing up at home means they’re interviewing parents; Showing up at schools means they’re interviewing teachers — further spreading fear about compliance — and potentially outing trans students to their schools and peers.” [tweet]

Visibility

Press — The 19th (which a twitter user noted has two reporters on this subject), The Texas Tribune, Bravo TV’s WWHL, The Star Telegram, The Washington Post Opinion piece, USA Today Opinion, The Guardian, The Austin American-Statesmen, Law and Crime, NBC News

Screenshot of tweet from Grindr that says “don’t mess with trans kids. Trans pride flag emoji. help #ProtectTransKids by supporting local orgs in Texas: blue heart emoji for @TransTexas white heart emoji for Equality Texas Red heart emoji for ACLU of Texas.” All three orgs have a bit.ly donation link. There are two pictures. One is a close-up of a man wearing a white t-shirt with a graphic that says “Don’t mess with Trans kids.” It has a blue stripe on the top with a white star and a red stripe on the bottom with the shape of the state of Texas in a play on the Texas flag. The second picture is a zoomed out version of the man wearing the t-shirt in the weight section of a gym.

Grindr highlighted the issue on their twitter account. [tweet]

Creators and Enforcers of TX Anti-Gender-Affirming Care

TX Gov. Abbott’s personal twitter account celebrated how he won a Supreme Court victory 17 years ago today to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments on Texas Capitol Grounds. [tweet] It also covered his day attending Texas Independence Day celebrations.

TX AG Paxton’s personal twitter account referenced yesterday’s TX primary election saying it’s now time for “all America First conservatives” to join to him battle “the establishment and the radical-Left’s dangerous agenda.” [tweet] As a reminder, he’s awaiting trial for an indictment on security charges. He’s also under investigation by the FBI for quid-pro-quo dealings and abuse of power after whistleblowers came forward.

TX AG Paxton’s official government twitter shared that he won a case against Twitter to be able to continue investigating Twitter for “coordinated cancellation of Trump & conservative voices/platforms”. [tweet]

TX DFPS highlighted a brother and sister that want to be adopted together, a state tuition waiver for foster youth, and a development in their Community-based Care contract.

Thanks to @ErininTheMorn on Twitter and @GBBranstetter on Twitter for adding non-Texas news and a lot of context to the happenings today.

UPDATE: The initial posting of this article had the wrong link for the reference to the FBI investigation of TX AG Paxton.