(Washington) A court in Texas on Wednesday suspended an investigation targeting the parents of a transgender teenager, carried out pursuant to a recent directive controversial from the governor of this conservative state which has been criticized even by President Joe Biden.
Posted at 10:24 p.m.
The family of this minor, supported by the powerful civil rights organization ACLU, had filed a complaint to block the investigation, and more broadly to invalidate the directive of Governor Greg Abbott.
A court in Travis County, Texas, decided to stay the actions against the parents, according to a court document, after the judge ruled that the plaintiffs would otherwise suffer “irreparable harm”.
The suspension “prevents (State of Texas Family Services) from investigating the parents named in the complaint because they are working with medical professionals to provide their teenage daughter with necessary medical treatment,” the branch said. from the ACLU in a statement.
Due to the Texas directive, the mother of the transgender teenager was recently suspended by her employer – Texas Family Support Services – and was visited by an inspector who was investigating whether her daughter from 16, “was not transitioning from male to female,” according to the complaint.
The ACLU stresses that the court’s decision only applies to this case, but specifies that a hearing is scheduled for March 11 to decide on the texts covered by the complaint.
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’ .
This is a “cynical and dangerous campaign that targets transgender children and their parents”, denounced Joe Biden in a press release on Wednesday.
“These actions terrify many families, in Texas and beyond,” continued the US president, “and they must stop. »
According to the complaint, the directive has “traumatized” the teenager who fears being separated from her parents or being “deprived of the medical treatments which allowed her to flourish”.
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.