Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been slammed by a number of conservatives for refusing to push legislation banning child sex changes during a special session of the state’s legislature.
On Wednesday, Abbott published his priority list for the special session of the Texas legislature. While including some conservative ideas, such as election integrity, and border protection, notably absent from the list was any legislative plans to ban child sex change surgeries in the state. Abbott, along with Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Dade Phelan, were apparently behind plans to kill such legislation in the original session, including HB 1399, which would have stripped doctors of their ability to acquire liability insurance if they engaged in child transgender surgeries or chemical castrations at their practices.
Tim Swain, the America First senate candidate running to replace Tim Scott in South Carolina, said it was “disgraceful” that Abbott was not willing to legislate against child sex changes. “If you cannot drink alcohol before age 21, you should not be able to change your gender,” Swain tweeted. “Protect our children!” Popular conservative news account Columbia Bugle also slammed Abbott, suggesting he should copy Arkansas’s SAFE Act.
https://twitter.com/SwainForSenate/status/1412784507229376514
How about banning reassignment surgeries and transition procedures from being used on children? You’re welcome to copy Arkansas’ #SAFEact. https://t.co/zBRMiJMHsP
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) July 7, 2021
Both of Abbott’s conservative challengers during for the Texas Governorship spoke out against the plans. “Abbott’s refusal to add legislation to the call that protects vulnerable Texas children from Left-wing sickos who want to cause them irreversible harm and legislation banning the use of taxpayer dollars to lobby the legislature are glaring omissions that show how far out of touch he is with everyday Texans,” said Don Huffines, who has stood by the father of James Younger, who identifies as a boy with his father but is being forced to wear dresses and identify as a girl by his mother.
Lt. Col. Allen West, who joined the gubernatorial race a few days ago after months of leading the charge against child gender modification via his role as the Chairman of the Texas GOP, had further harsh words for Abbott. “First of all, if the 87th legislative session was a resounding success, why does one need to have a special session?” West queried. “I found it very disconcerting that several of the Legislative Priorities of the Republican Party of Texas such as ending taxpayer-funded lobbying, school choice, monument protection, and ending child gender modification were not listed as agenda items.”
“Greg Abbott just doesn’t care about the sadly abused children of deeply misguided parents that allow little girl to have her breasts removed at 12, 13, 14, at puberty,” said former US House candidate Chris Ekstrom, speaking exclusively to National File. “Greg Abbott doesn’t care that an insane female doctor wants to turn her youngest son into a girl. Greg Abbott promised Texans that we wouldn’t become like California, but it’s happening every single day he is governor.”
Ekstrom also told National File that “There’s credible speculation that the Democrats are going to stage a walk out to New Mexico,” joked Ekstrom “Where the governor’s even more friendly than Abbott is to them.”
National File has reported extensively on the donations that Abbott, Patrick, and Phelan, have received millions from PACs linked to clinics that offer transgender treatment to migrants:
In 2017, the Gender Care Clinic opened at the Family Medicine Center, run by the Doctors Hospital of Renaissance and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg. The clinic offers “hormone replacement consultation” among other transgender treatments. Dr Michelle Cordoba, an endocrinologist at the clinic, said that many transgender immigrants were treated at the clinic…
Initially reported by Tracy Shannon of MadMommaBear, a number of top Texas Republicans have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Border Health PAC, which links back to the transgender clinic. Since 2015, Governor Greg Abbott received $800,000 from the PAC, while his second-in-command, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, took $825,000 from them in the same time frame. House Speaker Dade Phelan also received $105,000, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton received a cool $200,000 from them.
A second PAC, linked to the Gender Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program at UT Southwestern Medical Center, which is the “first and largest program in the southwest that provides multidisciplinary care to transgender children and adolescents,” also forked out $85,000, $120,000, and $50,000 to Abbott, Patrick, and Phelan respectively.
Abbott’s stance is contrary to that of most Texans. When polled in May, 91.7% were in favor of legislation designed to ban child sex change surgeries and treatments. Similarly, 89.4% of parents in Texas District 21 believe that “parents, psychologists, and medical doctors” should not be allowed to “alter a child’s body with surgery or drugs for gender transitioning purposes.” 92.1% of respondents also believe that biological males should not be allowed to compete in girls’ sports. An overwhelming 91.6% of respondents said that it is not okay for “Texas to have a Speaker that supports chemical castration of children.”
