Legislators aren’t doctors

Physicians know better

Regarding “Anti-trans bills would devastate our children,” (A12, April 29): The Texas Senate seems to think it knows more about treatments for transgender children than the doctors and researchers who have concluded that the benefits outweigh the risks.

How long will it be before legislators decide that less controversial treatments also should be banned?

The state could save a lot of money by banning some elective surgeries and expensive medications — why should it listen to doctors when we say something is necessary for a patient?

Stella Fitzgibbons, The Woodlands

You shall not pass

Most of Houston’s notorious traffic would magically melt away if people would simply follow the rules of the road and keep right except to pass.

Instead, everyone dashes to claim the left lane and hold it, or sticks to one lane regardless of anything. If you are being passed on the right, you are too far over to the left. Please be aware that there are other drivers trying to get somewhere.

Bruce Ellis, Houston

Why the foul language?

Regarding “Cheerleader’s salty language goes to Supreme Court,” (A13, April 29): Perhaps if her parents taught her to express herself appropriately she would not have gotten suspended.

It does not appear to me that her suspension was due to her expression of frustration or a disagreement about her qualifications for the varsity cheerleading team, but was due to her foul language and inappropriate gesture.

While the First Amendment guarantees our freedom of speech, it would be nice if children were taught how to express themselves and fight for their rights with language that demonstrated some analytic thinking skills and some basic intelligence.

It would be nice to think that in supporting their daughter in her disappointment over not qualifying for the varsity team they would acknowledge her right to use foul language, but ask her, why would she?

Barbara Drozdowski Mackey, Houston

A teen’s perspective

While reading the cheerleader article, I realized what an interesting and conflicting topic this was and had to give my opinion about it. I think that what Stephen Breyer had to say about the topic was very accurate. Kids should not be punished for swearing outside of school because if that was the case it would be nothing but punishments.

Something that also caught my attention was when Elena Kagan gave a couple of examples of things done by students that should be punishable, like sexual harassment. I think that this case is a little conflicting because the cheerleader was talking specifically about the school and saying “f- - - school, f- - - softball” etc. which means that the school had the right to get involved because the hate speech was about them. At the same time she is not at school and what is done outside of school should not concern the school at all. This is an interesting case, and I hope to see how it plays out. Daniel Garcia, Houston

Correction: In an editorial published Friday, today’s bond election for the Katy Independent School District was called the district’s largest ever. It is not. The $748 million election in 2014 was larger.