(Washington) First parents are being investigated in Texas under a controversial directive from the governor of the conservative US state on the care of transgender minors, according to a complaint made public on Tuesday.
Posted at 6:54 p.m.
The mother of a transgender teenager was suspended by her employer – Texas Family Services – and was visited by a detective who was looking to see if her 16-year-old daughter “wasn’t to transition from male to female,” according to the court document.
The family, assisted in particular by the powerful human rights organization ACLU, took legal action to block this investigation, and more broadly to invalidate a directive from Governor Greg Abbott, dated February 22.
This document, published in the midst of an election and after the failure of a similar bill, equates certain “sex change” procedures for minors with criminally reprehensible “ill-treatment”. He cites surgical operations, but also hormonal treatments, such as puberty blockers which slow down the changes in the body during adolescence.
State services “must investigate the parents of children subjected to these abusive procedures”, writes the Republican governor.
According to the complaint from the family targeted by the first investigation, this text has “traumatized” their daughter who fears being separated from her parents or “depriving of medical treatment which has allowed her to flourish”.
A psychologist specializing in the issue joined the complaint for fear of being forced to denounce her patients.
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.