by Carl P. Leubsdorf
A year after the murder of 19 students and two teachers at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School, the Texas legislature could be trying to curb the state’s easy access to deadly firearms.
As thousands of poor people lose the temporary access to Medicaid gained during the COVID pandemic, it could rectify the state’s shameful status as one of only 10 rejecting the Affordable Care Act’s offer to extend health care coverage to thousands.
Rather, the Republican-dominated body continues to respond mainly to conservative political priorities by targeting society’s most vulnerable members, notably joining the national GOP drive to prevent parents from undertaking gender-affirming treatments for their transgender children.
Ironically, their agenda represents a reversal of the GOP’s long-time governing philosophy: limited government, power closest to the people, individual rights, the primacy of the family.
Measures aimed at transgender children are only part of an agenda heavy on social issues since Republicans tightened their majorities in recent elections. Last year, they barred almost all abortions except in the case of a medical emergency involving the mother.
Meanwhile, legislators are again singling out Harris County (Houston) — two-thirds Latino or Black — for new voter rules despite the absence of significant fraud. And Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing a plan that would weaken the public school system by giving parents of private school students access to state education funds.
Their focus on social issues is hardly unique. It mirrors the way Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a supine Florida legislature passed an array of conservative measures designed primarily to bolster his presidential bid.
Indeed, the Texas legislature is soon likely to pass its version of Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill, a measure to ban “instruction, guidance, activities, or programming regarding sexual orientation or gender identity to students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.”
Meanwhile, similar agendas, singling out transgender youth and curbing abortions, are also being enacted by most other Republican governors and GOP legislative majorities.
Their target is a tiny proportion of the 330 million Americans. UCLA’s Williams Institute estimated there are 1.3 million transgender adults in the United States, including 92,900 in Texas, and 300,000 between the ages of 13 and 17, including 29,800 in Texas.
So far this year, according to the Trans Legislative Tracker, 73 bills aimed at transgender people have passed in 21 states and nearly 400 remain under active consideration, including the pending Texas measure to bar hormone treatments and puberty blockers for Texans under 18.
In some instances, proposals to curb treatment of transgender youth have provoked dramatic encounters.
Before Nebraska voted to bar transgender health care for youths, a Republican state senator precipitated an angry response by complaining the extended debate kept her from her grandson’s preschool graduation.
“I am not asking you to sit here through late nights to vote on these bills that we’re dragging out,” said state Sen. Megan Hunt, parent of a 12-year-old transgender son. “I’m asking you to love your family more than you hate mine.”
In Texas, two were arrested as hundreds demonstrated against the legislation barring puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender youth.
The Texas bill awaiting Abbott’s signature drew substantial medical opposition during hearings earlier this year. It would require the state to revoke the medical licenses of doctors who provide treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy or surgery to minors in order “to transition a child’s biological sex.”
It would ban taxpayer money from individuals and entities, including public colleges and universities, that provide such care to minors.
Its main sponsor, Republican Tom Oliverson, an anesthesiologist, said parents had been “manipulated” into affirming their transgender children and should seek mental health care, other than surgery.
Other pending bills would restrict transgender men and women from collegiate athletics and bar minors from attending sexually explicit performances like drag shows.
Such moves reflect the prevailing politics of gay and transgender issues, like opposition to gay marriage a generation ago. But the latter has changed dramatically over the years.
Public opinion surveys display some mixed trends. A recent Pew Research Center survey showed 64% favor laws protecting transgender people from discrimination with only 10% opposed. The remainder had no view.
But a Washington Post-KFF poll found 68% of adults oppose access to puberty-blocking medication for transgender children 10-14 and 58% oppose access to hormonal treatments for those 15-17. Some 57% agreed a child’s gender is assigned at birth while 43% said it could later differ, a significant minority.
But over 60% supported gender-affirming counseling or therapy for transgender minors.
For now, Republicans politicians in states like Texas can take comfort from the fact that the public favors the restrictions they are passing. But that hardly makes them right — and there is no guarantee it won’t change.
