Debate over anti-transgender bills gets ugly
During his testimony last week for Senate Bill 14, which seeks to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a Houston doctor was dismissed for uttering a word too profane for our Legislature: “bulls—t.” It was interesting that this was the cause for removal, not GOP activist Steven Hotze’s repeated description of transgender people as pedophiles. Apparently that ugly lie, and denial of humanity, is OK.
The bill, and the ugliness it represents, should be dismissed.
Yet, of course, it’s still alive. Monday, after hundreds of LGBTQ Texans and their supporters gathered at the Capitol for an “All in for Equality” rally, the Texas Senate committee voted to send the measure to the full chamber.
Texas senators heard nine hours of testimony at the hearing last week on bills that would restrict transgender youth and adults from accessing gender-affirming care and from changing the sex on their birth certificates and other limitations. Our take on SB 14 is fairly straightforward: These young adults, their parents and doctors know best; and they should have freedom to make their own informed medical decisions without big government intervention.
But it was the exchange during the hearing between state Sen. José Menéndez, D-san Antonio, and Hotze, a GOP activist, that was demonstrative of how ugly and dehumanizing this discussion is.
“All day, we’ve all been here listening, patiently. Some of you have lived the difficulty that these bills are going to address or trying to address,” Menéndez said. “Doctor Hotze, I know you’re a medical doctor and a professional. I would just ask you to refrain from calling people pedophiles, because I don’t think the doctors that have come before us today are pedophiles.”
Hotze didn’t back down: “By definition, they are pedophiles,” he said.
“I have trans friends, I have trans staff members, I have trans members of my community, and what you do when you call them (pedophiles), it’s very hurtful to them,” Menéndez said.
And this led to Hotze’s use of profanity and subsequent dismissal.
There are 140 ANTI-LGBTQ bills in the Texas Legislature this session, including 42 that target people who are transgender, according to the Equality Texas’ 2023 LGBTQ bill tracker. It’s the most ever filed in Texas.
While this ongoing crusade against trans people isn’t new, the focus has intensified since the bathroom bill debate of 2017. Other bills would stop children from attending drag shows and ban transgender student-athletes from participating in college sports that align with their gender identity.
SB 14 is among the most unsettling of the anti-transgender bills because it would infringe on a parent’s and child’s freedom to make informed health care choices; and it would prevent doctors from providing leading and appropriate medical advice. The measure would require the Texas Medical Board to revoke the licenses of physicians who provide gender-affirming care, and it would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for that care.
The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, have all said transition care is medically necessary. And let’s also remember that transgender people have much higher rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts than the general population and are far more likely to experience a violent attack, such as rape, sexual assault and aggravated assault.
Why aren’t we focusing on these issues?
State Sen. Donna Campbell, Rnew Braunfels, an emergency room doctor who authored the bill, tweeted before the hearing: “Finishing up preparations for tomorrow’s hearing on SB 14, the Children’s Gender Protection Act, which would protect Texas children from medically unnecessary, irreversible gender modification treatments. I’ll never stop fighting for Texas kids!”
Campbell, Hotze and other members of the GOP are on the wrong side of this fight.
Each child is unique. Experts and transgender people have shared that, for some, gender-affirming care is medically necessary and can be lifesaving. That’s what Menéndez and so many others who oppose this bill understand.
Leave these health care decisions to the young adults, parents and doctors.
Legislative measures targeting LGBTQ community show a lack of humanity