Texas: Transgender Surgery Being Performed on Kids is Child Abuse and Violates the Law

  Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) have determined that transgender surgeries being pe...

 

Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) have determined that transgender surgeries being performed on children is abuse and violates state law.

Governor Abbott had requested clarification on the issue from DFPS, the department responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect, earlier this month.

In response, DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters asserted that it is.

“Genital mutilation of a child through reassignment surgery is child abuse, subject to all rules and procedures pertaining to child abuse,” DFPS Commissioner Masters wrote in a letter to Governor Abbott on Wednesday. 

 Masters continued on to say that performing surgery on the genitals of a child “may cause a ‘genuine threat of substantial harm from physical injury to the child'” under Texas family code. “This surgical procedure physically alters a child’s genitalia for non-medical purposes potentially inflicting irreversible harm to children’s bodies. Generally, children in the care and custody of a parent lack the legal capacity to consent to surgical treatments, making them more vulnerable.”

The commissioner explained a few scenarios in which surgery on a child’s genitals may not be abuse including illness or trauma; children who are “born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, such as the presence of both ovarian and testicular tissue”; and children who do not “have the normal sex chromosome structure for male or female as determined through genetic testing.”

None of those exceptions apply to people who are trying to get surgery for their child to change their gender.

Fox News reports that “under Texas Family Code, a professional who has ’cause to believe’ that child abuse has occurred or is occurring must report to DFPS within 48 hours. Professionals may not delegate this reporting duty and failure to report constitutes a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $4,000, or both.”