Texas Must Protect Children from Gender Modification

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In 2017, Gallup released a poll stating that .7% of the US population identified as transgender, or gender diverse. Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics puts that figure at between 2.5% - 8.4% of US children and adolescents. The percentage is rapidly rising, as popular culture pushes this idea through our schools, news, entertainment, and social media.

Gender dysphoria - confusion about one's biological gender - didn't appear in medical journals until 1980 as the diagnosis "transsexualism." In 1994, "transsexualism" was replaced with "gender identity disorder in adults and adolescence" in an effort to reduce stigma.

Therapy for the disorder quickly moved from counselling to gender reassignment surgery. The FDA approved so-called "puberty blockers" in 1993. Those given these drugs encountered risk of change in their body composition, slowed growth, weakened bones, sterilization, and the high cost of drugs themselves.

It's impossible to "reassign" someone's sex physically because the biology remains the same, and those who attempt physical transition face poor outcomes.

So why is this pushed on our children? It's well known that as early as kindergarten, children are being surveyed without parental knowledge or consent. In California, high school students are provided with a "transition closet" to make teenagers "feel more like themselves."

Government-controlled schools encourage sexually-confused children to change gender, while parents are kept in the dark. This has become a mass experiment on vulnerable children with the goal of separating the child from the parent. Every government employee - to include teachers and school staff - are accountable to the public that pays them, and yet very little transparency occurs with what happens in the classroom.

This past February, our Attorney General waded into the conflict with an opinion that stated "sex change procedures can legally constitute child abuse." Prior to that, a bill that originated in the Texas Senate and passed that body, went to the House and died in the Public Health Committee chaired by a Republican. There was a companion bill - HB 1399 - that was intentionally delayed by the Republicans in Calendars Committee, and they let time run out, and it died before it could get a vote on the floor of the Texas House. The Attorney General spoke out because our Republican-led legislature failed to do so and the governor never made this issue an item for action and vote in any of the three special sessions that were called.

School is hard enough on children. The social, emotional, and physical challenges are known to all of us adults. At times, we felt awkward and uncomfortable with the changes we felt as our hormones pushed us into adulthood. Some kids cruelly ridiculed others, and at times our only respite was a loving family who would listen and talk to us.

No family is perfect, but no government employee or person in the medical field is a substitute for family. Whatever confusion a child may feel, life-altering decisions must remain with the parents and the child involved and, in wisdom, should wait until the child becomes a legal adult. Our legislature and governor must move to abolish the following practices for minors that cannot be undone: intervention to prevent natural progression of puberty, administration of opposite sex hormones, and the performance of any type of gender reassignment surgery.

Do not allow Republicans to once again kill bills in committees or run out the clock on protecting Texas kids. We must ban pediatric gender modification in the state of Texas for good.