GOP leaders take up parents’ fight over gender of child

DALLAS — Top Republican leaders in Texas this week weighed in on two parents’ battle over their 7yearold child’s gender identity after the case was shared widely on social media and conservative news sites.

Former spouses Anne Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger, who live in the Dallas area, have been embroiled in a legal dispute over their divorce and the care of their children since 2015. Georgulas says the couple’s 7yearold who was born a boy now identifies as a girl and prefers to be called a female name. Younger, who says the child acts like a boy around him, asked to be the sole decisionmaker and created a website in which he pleads for help to “save” his child.

Inaccurate and misleading stories about the 7yearold have since circulated in blogs, Facebook posts, YouTube videos and petitions, bringing attention to a usually private matter. The Associated Press is not naming the 7yearold to protect the child’s privacy.

Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Wednesday evening that the attorney general’s office and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services were looking into “the matter” of the child. And on Thursday, Attorney General Ken Paxton said he was asking Family and Protective Services to investigate the mother for possible child abuse, citing “public reports” in a letter that alleges she is “forcing” the child to transition to a girl.

However, Judge Kim Cooks in Dallas said Thursday during a hearing that the court noted no abuse, neglect or family violence in the case. Cooks ruled that the parents would make joint decisions about the child.

The judge scolded the father, who she noted was unemployed, for seeking publicity and raising money on his website, but she also pointed out how the mother testified that her encouragement of the child being transgender may have been excessive.

Much of the public reaction to the case has focused on backing the narrative laid out on the father’s website, which features a headline saying he’s fighting “chemical castration and sexchange of his son.”

Attorneys for Georgulas, who is a pediatrician, said before the hearing that she was “being viciously attacked and threatened by complete strangers based on false and untrue statements.”