TX Officials Criminalizing Parents for Gender-Affirming Medical Care — Where do companies stand? (Part 2)
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote a legal opinion that expanded the Texas definition of child abuse to include providing gender-affirming medical care to a transgender child(e.g. hormones, puberty blockers). Governor Abbott instructed the Department of Family and Protective Services(DFPS) to act on this new definitional opinion of child abuse including investigating all allegations and supporting prosecutions. LGBTQ Crisis in Texas — What is going on? Part 1 provides more details.
The direct consequence is that parents who support their transgender child by following the advice of national medical associations are at immediate and continuing risk of having their child(ren) taken away to be put in foster care and/or being arrested for it.
These parents have jobs. The licensed professionals who have a ‘duty to report’ child abuse, including doctors, teachers, and nurses, have jobs. Each of them impacts hundreds of other Texans. The uncertainties, fear for themselves, and fear for their child(ren) are bound to have negative effects on their professional lives. When, or if, parents start being arrested for getting their kid(s) medically necessary care, the related time out of work will add to the effects of the Great Resignation, supply chain problems, and the Great Retirement.
In order to find out how workplaces are addressing this new opinion, a list of directly identifiable stakeholder companies was generated. Any company that met at least one of the following criteria was added.
- HRC CEI 2022 grade of 100
- HRC CEI 2022 graded company with a TX headquarters
- Signers of the Freedom for All Americans Business Statement on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation
- Signers of Texas Competes 2021 Open Business Letter as of the 2/24/22 update.
- Equality Texas Sponsors
- PFLAG National Named Corporate Partners
- GLSEN National Named Corporate Partners
- NCLR Named Corporate Partners
The Transgender Law Center and Transgender Education Network of Texas(TENT) do not have corporate partners listed on their website and therefore they could not be included as of publication time. Additional modifications were made for simplicity^. The resulting stakeholder list is 623 companies.
So far 84 have been contacted for comment.
17 Companies have a HRC CEI grade of 100, are a Fortune 1000 company, and are headquartered in TX
Within this subset of 17 companies only one has responded to emailed questions to date. A Dell Technologies spokesperson told this reporter:
Our position remains the same: anti-LGBTQIA policies go against Dell Technologies policies. We believe in fair treatment in the workplace, regardless of race, gender identity or religion. It’s a commitment we mirror in our diversity, equity and anti-discrimination policies, as well as the public policies we support.
Dell, most widely known as a computer manufacturer, is also the only one of the 17 that’s a) signed the Business Statement on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation, b) signed the Texas Competes 2021 Open Business Letter, and c) sponsored a major organization working to help trans youth in Texas. This remains true if you look at all 41 companies on the stakeholder list with a HRC CEI grade of 100 and a TX headquarters.
American Airlines is also in this subset of 17 companies but they are not a named partner or sponsor of any of the charities used to create this stakeholder list. They are a long-established contributor to other LGBTQ charities.
AT&T’s Policy Leader Supports Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill(s)
On Sunday, February 27, Judd Legum of Popular Information highlighted that “@ATT’s public policy is run by former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie, who supported North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom bill.”
^Modifications to the list of business stakeholders were focused on aligning data at the grain of an HRC CEI grade. Brand-level sponsors and ERG-specific sponsors were rolled up into the related(next highest) company with an HRC CEI grade. If a company had its own HRC CEI grade it was not rolled up to it’s parent company. If a brand had multiple owners with their own HRC CEI grades, it was not rolled up. Philanthropic foundations, cities, individual donors, and Texas Chamber of Commerce organizations were removed.
