Texas lawmakers are considering bills to ban “sex change” procedures for children and prohibit gender-confused males from playing in girls’ sports.
SB 1646, a bill heard in committee in the Texas Senate last week, would redefine the state’s child abuse laws to include “administering, supplying or consenting to provide” “gender transitioning or gender reassignment” procedures to minors. The bill, which resembles a law passed in Arkansas two weeks ago, effectively bans puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone drugs, and sex change surgeries.
Sen. Charles Perry, the lead sponsor of SB 1646, and one of the bill’s twelve Republican co-authors, slammed “gender transition” practices as “not reversible,” saying that they rob children of a future. “God gave us a season in life, and it’s to have innocence up to a certain point,” Perry said during a hearing on the bill. “When parents interject things that rob [children] of that innocence, and really robs them of a future, we have a problem.”
Parents who violate the proposed bill would break the Texas Family Code, initiating a state investigation and possibly leading to loss of custody and other legal penalties. Doctors who perform “gender reassignment” surgeries on children or prescribe minors puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones likewise could face disciplinary measures by the state medical board.
Puberty suppression drugs and cross-sex hormones have not been approved by the FDA for use in transgender procedures, including for minors, and never have been evaluated in any large clinical studies with children, as the British government noted in a scathing report earlier this month. The deadly drugs pose risks of cardiac arrest, various cancers, and other life-threatening side effects, in addition to permanent infertility.
Research has consistently shown that gender dysphoria resolves naturally in around 90% of minors, including up to 98% of boys. Nevertheless, when exposed to puberty blockers and affirmed in their so-called transgender identities, virtually all adolescents advance to extremely destructive, often regretted interventions like genital amputation. Read more…