Contact: Angela Hale | angela.hale@equalitytexas.org 512-289-2995

February 22, 2022 – AUSTIN, TEXAS – Equality Texas, the largest statewide organization solely dedicated to securing full equality for LGBTQ+ Texans, today released the following statement:

All children deserve to grow up healthy and learn to take care of their bodies in a way that helps them live full, happy lives. For transgender kids, this might include gender-affirming care that has been endorsed by pediatricians and proven to help kids’ mental health and future wellbeing. Our position at Equality Texas has always been and will continue to be that we stand with every major, credible medical association in supporting age-appropriate, best-practice standards of healthcare for transgender youth and adults because that care is evidence-based, rooted in science and, quite literally, life-saving. We urge all Texans to be skeptical about campaign stunts disguised as legal opinions from a corrupt politician who has built their career spreading disinformation about marginalized communities and who has no expertise in healthcare. That’s exactly why we must leave health care decisions to the actual experts–the pediatricians and other providers who are working with families to keep kids healthy–instead of letting politicians interfere.

Since the beginning of the 2021 legislative session, anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general have sought to lay the groundwork to turn Texans against their LGBTQ+ neighbors through an onslaught of harmful legislation, inflammatory rhetoric and discredited legal opinions. They have found it politically advantageous to spread lies about and villainize LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, grossly mischaracterizing our lives to paint us as scary caricatures that need to be feared, all in service of securing their re-elections. 

Disinformation, being spread about transgender people and their healthcare, highlights, exaggerates and imagines a non-existent problem as an urgent moral emergency that must be tackled right now – days before the primary election. It’s predictable and sad that during a crowded primary, politicians will further sow civil discord by amplifying lies about trans people to score political points. Misconstruing the law and amplifying junk science to attack innocent children and their parents is cruel, beneath contempt, and could have a devastating effect on transgender youth and their families. 

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Equality Texas is the largest statewide organization working to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Texans through political action, education, community organizing, and collaboration.