(Washington) Texas investigations into parents of transgender children must be suspended, a court in this southern United States ruled on Friday, ending a controversial directive from the Republican governor for the time being.
Posted at 8:19 p.m.
“Victory: A judge blocked the illegal actions of Governor Greg Abbott and [des services de l’État du Texas pour les familles] which targeted essential medical care for transgender youth,” the Texas branch of the powerful civil rights organization ACLU tweeted.
Judge Amy Clark Meachum said plaintiffs would suffer ‘imminent and irreparable harm’ if the directive, deemed ‘unconstitutional’, remained in effect, the daily reported. Houston Chronicle.
Governor Abbott’s Feb. 22 directive equates certain juvenile ‘gender reassignment’ procedures as criminally wrongful ‘abuse’ and calls on Texas agencies to investigate ‘parents of children subjected to these abusive procedures’ .
Texas Attorney General, Republican Ken Paxton, announced he is appealing Friday’s decision.
“A Democratic judge is trying to halt necessary legal investigations into those trying to abuse our children through ‘trans’ surgeries and drugs,” he tweeted.
The ACLU organization had already obtained in early March the suspension of an investigation targeting the parents of a transgender teenager.
Because of the directive, the teen’s mother was suspended by her employer – Texas Family Services – and was visited by an inspector who was investigating whether her 16-year-old daughter “didn’t was not transitioning from male to female,” according to the complaint filed by the family.
Joe Biden had denounced in this directive a “cynical and dangerous campaign which targets transgender children and their parents”.
The care to be given to transgender minors, just like their participation in sports competitions or the use of the toilets of the sex in which they identify, is the subject of lively debate in the United States where many conservative states have adopted these recent years of restrictive regulations.