Dear Mr. Paxton

Please think of the parents-we are victims too when it comes to trans ideology

Dear Mr. Paxton:

As a parent of a child with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) in California, I was very pleased to see your opinion that gender medicine on minors falls within the statutory scheme for child abuse.  I understand that you used the strongest tool available to stop children from harm, and for that I applaud you. No child can consent to gender medicine. No one has the right—even a parent—to take away the fertility of a child or irreversibly harm them based upon, what will likely be, an ephemeral belief.  However, I respectfully request some compassion to protect parents who were pressured to medicalize their children, as despite popular belief, not all parents whose children end up “transitioning” are fully informed or fully supportive during this process.

Parents are placed in untenable position. I am a lead of a parent group in my liberal state.  There is not one parent in our 75 plus person group who was provided with an alternative treatment for their child.  Affirm the identity and provide for immediate social and medical transition was the only option for many of us.  Abigail Martinez lost custody of her child for not affirming, and her daughter ended up taking her life after she was removed from the home and given wrong-sex hormones. Many parents in the US have lost custody of their children for not affirming them. We parents are "damned if we do and damned if we don't." 

We are blackmailed by therapists, school counselors, social workers, teachers, medical professionals and advocacy groups and told that, if we do not give into our children's demands for gender care (life-affirming care as they pose it), they will kill themselves. This mantra is repeated endlessly to devastating effect.  Nothing is scarier to a parent than the idea of your child killing him or herself. One only need to go to a few gender clinic sites or advocacy groups (Trevor Project, GLSEN, GLADD, ACLU, etc.) to see how parents are held hostage to these unfounded claims.  When doctors repeat those suicide statements, parents are terrified.

Many parents capitulate after been worn down, called transphobic and bigots for not jumping on the medical transition bandwagon with their minor children, many of whom have been groomed on the internet or even in school.  Some parents do not have access to real information about the risks and harms of gender medicine, including the poor follow through with studies, and terrible lifelong side effects.  Some parents trust doctors implicitly.  

I really hope that the district attorneys do not fault these parents from listening to those who they believed were going to provide them with help. I personally know many parents that permitted medical treatments that they later learned were not appropriate and were actually harmful to their children because they trusted the "experts." The ones who should, and need, to answer for this tragedy are the ones spewing the false narratives—Child Protective Services, advocacy groups, doctors, therapists, school counselors, etc.—not the parents who are bombarded with falsehoods and browbeaten into submission and acceptance.

That said, there are groups of parents that use the "trans-ing" of their children for virtue signaling, personal reasons, and even financial gain, as they script their child and parade them around as poster transkids. Those parents should be scrutinized and perhaps, held accountable for child abuse. Also, Texas, and all states should investigate social media platforms that market harmful gender ideology to children and vulnerable young adults. Advertising to children on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Gofundme, Twitter and alike is no different than the "thin nation”, eventually banned for promoted anorexia to teens.

It’s important to remember, as you build ground-breaking new regulations to protect children, that CPS and all the groups that are required to report have been captured by the gender ideologues. They have been trained in one narrative for years. Until that is reversed, these groups will protect those pushing unscientific treatments for gender dysphoria, and causing further harm to children and their parents, who are most frequently just trying to do what’s best for them.

Thank you for safeguarding children in Texas. Here in California, we are moving in the opposite direction at a faster and faster pace. Hundreds of thousands of children will be harmed. Those of us in other states are thankful that Texas is leading the charge to build a better future for our children, and hope you will also think of the parents who are also victims of this harmful social contagion as you do so.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,
A Desperate Mom Trying to Protect Children