House Bill (HB) 68 would amend the section of the Texas Family Code that defines child abuse to include the removal of healthy tissue, the prescription of puberty-blocking hormones, and sterilization surgeries if the procedures aim to “change or affirm a child’s perception of the child’s sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex as determined by the child’s sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profiles.”
Toth says the infamous James Younger case inspired his bill.
“I was mortified to know… that you could take a seven-year-old and put him on hormone-blocking drugs… I was horrified to know or to think that a judge would actually allow this. I mean, it’s just unbelievable,” Toth said.
“It’s ridiculous in my mind that the legislature even has to give guidance or create a law to protect a seven-year-old from a parent that’s trying to transition a seven-year-old. I mean, that’s ridiculous.”
James Younger’s parents battled in court over his conservatorship, with the mother contending that James identified as a girl and pressing for transition procedures. The mother emphasized that she was not seeking a medical transition, which HB 68 would prohibit, against the father’s suspicions.
In addition to outlawing hormone blockers for children, the bill would classify as child abuse surgeries including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty. These procedures all either remove sex organs or surgically change them into those possessed by the opposite sex.
Toth believes most children believed to have gender dysphoria decide not to commit to transition upon adulthood, and he plans to call a number of people who received such treatments in childhood to testify before the legislature.
“If you look at study after study after study… nearly 80 percent of these kids by the time they’re 20 desist from wanting to transition,” Toth argued.
“We’re going to have people that will testify that have gone through this, that have desisted… This isn’t an issue of being anti-gay or being against the homosexual community. The vast majority of these people that desist from it do go on to practice homosexuality,” said the lawmaker. “So it’s not an issue of being anti-gay. This doesn’t stop someone from desisting from homosexuality. It’s to protect them from making a crucial mistake in their developmental years.”
The 87th Texas Legislative Session is set to convene in January 2021.
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