Popular legislation to ban treatments that surgically or chemically “transition” a child’s sex is formally slated for a vote in the Texa...
Popular legislation to ban treatments that surgically or chemically “transition” a child’s sex is formally slated for a vote in the Texas Legislature, but insiders say it has actually fallen victim to a procedural maneuver by state Republican leaders intended to kill it.
House Bill 1399 prohibits physicians from performing on minors medical treatments “for the purpose of transitioning a child’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the child or affirming the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex,” except in extremely rare cases of actual hermaphroditism (as confirmed by having genetic or anatomical characteristics of both sexes). The bill also forbids medical insurance policies from insuring physicians against the damage done by such treatments.
The bill was scheduled for a floor vote on Wednesday, May 12 in the state House of Representatives, but despite the chamber’s Republican majority, former state Rep. Matt Rinaldi told National File that, without scheduling a floor debate for the bill, lawmakers won’t get a chance to vote on it.
“If it’s scheduled for a Wednesday, unless they’re doing something completely different, I’ll be shocked if they get to it,” Rinaldi explained. “When they schedule something on the last day, they’re setting it up for the Democrats to filibuster it. If they wanted it to pass, it would have already passed.”
“If you look at the calendars the last several sessions, and look on the last day, you’ll see a host of bills that are conservative firebrand bills that they knew they would never get to, and that’s all for them escaping accountability,” he continued. “I think it’s absolutely disgusting that bills like banning the mutilation of children and sex change surgeries are even being delayed. If we can’t, as a party, holding both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion, if we can’t pass that bill, what’s the case for voting for them at all, in any election? They’re absolutely terrible.”
National File added that its sources say Republican Gov. Greg Abbott opposes the bill and wants to avoid having to be seen vetoing it, as were Republican Govs. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. Abbott has endorsed a conservative bill on a different transgender issue, protecting women’s sports programs, but the entire subject faces intense pressure from both media and corporate interests.
“We assume that (Calendars Committee chair and state Rep. Dustin) Barrows was given this important position in order to protect the priorities of Governor Abbott and the current Speaker (Dade Phelan),” said former U.S. House candidate Chris Ekstrom. “He’s their hatchet man, he’s there to snuff conservative bills. Abbott’s woke corporate cronies have decreed that we can’t be Texas anymore, and no one’s taken more money from them than Greg Abbott, no one in the country, not even Joe Biden.”
Most cases of childhood gender confusion resolve themselves unless imposed or reinforced by adults, and a wealth of social science literature indicates that indulging a child’s gender confusion, whether surgically or psychologically, is harmful in the long run.
In 2017, the University of Cambridge’s Stonewall report found that 96 percent of trans students in Scotland attempted self-harm through actions such as cutting themselves, and 40 percent attempted suicide. Forty percent in the United States have attempted suicide as well, according to a 2016 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). According to a 2011 study from Sweden, trans people remain 19 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, even after surgery to reconstruct their bodies.
The fallout is even more severe for chemical or surgical “reassignment” procedures, such as puberty-blocking hormones or removal of a child’s breasts or penis. “Each of these procedures has serious negative side effects — up to and including permanent sterilization,” the Family Research Council warns. “Despite claims to the contrary, these procedures are often not reversible.”
Despite Texas’s longstanding reputation as a conservative gold standard, Abbott has come under fire from the Right on several occasions in recent years, most recently the mask mandate he imposed on his state and didn’t rescind until March 2021.
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