(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Texas has outlawed circumcision!! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-13 TEXAS LAW PROHIBITS CIRCUMCISION! PEDIATRICIANS MUST REPORT PARENTS REQUESTING CIRCUMCISION TO CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES TO BE INVESTIGATED FOR CHILD ABUSE! PARENTS MUST REPORT PHYSICIANS WHO SUGGEST OR PERFORM CIRCUMCISION! FAILING TO REPORT CHILD ABUSE IS A CRIME. In the Office of Attorney General opinion (#KP-0401) issued by Attorney General Ken Paxton, he quotes the Texas law, which prohibits “the removal of otherwise healthy body parts.” The OAG opinion was in response to questions regarding “elective procedures for gender reassignment.” However, the circumcision of male infants is an elective procedure that is not medically necessary and has limited benefits. The infant is subjected to substantial pain, increased risk of infection, and a traumatic experience endured before the child can consent or object. The circumcision of male newborns removes a healthy body part meeting the definition of “otherwise healthy body parts”. Due to his hate and contempt for children struggling with gender identity, AG Paxton may be blind to the ramifications of his legal opinion and interpretation of the Texas law and its enforcement. This law seems also to prohibit many other common medical procedures, such as the removal of extra fingers and toes. Medical data indicates that 1 in 500 babies are born with more than ten fingers and 1 in 700 babies with more than ten toes. The extra fingers and toes are not diseased and therefore, the surgical removal is a violation of Texas law. About 2.5% of newborns have more than two nipples, multiple nipples are fairly common birth abnormalities, but these are also “otherwise healthy body parts” and can not be removed legally in Texas. AG Paxton argued that children (under 18 years old) could not give informed consent for gender-affirming medical procedures and therefore, should not be allowed. If the law is applied as it is written, it would prohibit all medical procedures for a child since children are unable to give informed consent. In about one percent of births, doctors are unable to assign gender due to ambiguous genitalia. In these cases, the parents are often advised to choose the gender identity for their child and consent to a surgical procedure in favor of the chosen gender. These procedures should be prohibited according to AG Paxton’s opinion, since the intervention includes removing otherwise healthy body parts, without informed consent from the child, and is likely to cause emotional and psychological injury to the child. Texas governor, Greg Abbott has ordered Texas Child Protective Services to investigate parents who seek therapy for their children who confide feelings of gender dysphoria. He contends that his decision is based on existing Texas law and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s OAG findings that elective procedures for gender transition constitute child abuse. Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Attorney General Ken Paxton obviously have very little knowledge and less understanding of medical and psychological science or what constitutes abuse or neglect. In fact, parents failing to seek medical and psychological care for their child would meet the definition of abuse and neglect. The OAG opinion argues that gender-affirming procedures “can cause mental or emotional injury to a child that results in an observable and material impairment in a child’s growth, development, or psychological functioning”. The irony and hypocrisy of this argument are astounding. There are little to no scientific studies to validate his contentions of harm to children due to gender-affirming therapy, although the trauma of the surrounding oppression of trans children is not instantly ameliorated. So yes, some transitioned children and adults still have emotional, psychological, or physical problems. However, studies revealed levels of depression and anxiety are no more prevalent in transitioned children than in other children. However, the emotional, psychological, and physical injury to trans children facing a culture of rejection, condemnation, and vicious hate is well documented. Forty-one percent of trans people have attempted suicide. This is a well-document statistic proving the extent of emotional, psychological, and physical harm to non-transitioned children. Trans people are so marginalized that they are four times more likely to live in poverty and two times more likely to be unemployed and/or homeless. Almost a third of all trans people have sought no medical care due to fear of discrimination and being unable to find a physician who understands their medical needs. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes, published in Clinical Endocrinology (Murad, et al 2010) found evidence that reassignment procedures improve psychological health and overall quality of life. AG Paxton even tries to use the phenomena of Munchausen by proxy to indict parents who seek help for their trans-dysphoric children. It is quite evident that he is not a mental health professional and has no knowledge or understanding of this syndrome. Munchausen by proxy refers to parents or caretakers who induce illness in a child in order to receive attention or gratification as a parent of a sick child. Paxton and Abbott blame parents who seek help for their child, and assume that a parent who is caring or supportive is encouraging or even causing gender dysphoria. Abbott and Paxton encourage parents to punish, shame, and reject their children experiencing gender issues. This response has a long history in the USA and has led to serious mental health problems, especially suicide and suicidal ideation. Then Paxton is really reaching by using the past forced sterilization of minorities as some kind of correlation to the resultant inability to procreate from transitional surgery. One is forced and the other is sought, big difference. So this same law which would prohibit gender-affirming surgery (GAS) for a minor based on Paxton’s contention that the “right to procreate” is sacred. Paxton and Abbott also assert that GAS should be prohibited because the minor can not give informed consent, this interpretation would also ban the parents of institutionalized minors with severe mental or physical disabilities from consenting to sterilization. Parents of the severely disabled must obtain a court order to allow sterilization, but under Paxton’s interpretation of the law, those parents would be subject to a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation for neglect or child abuse. It is unknown if the Governor and Attorney General are aware of or considered the fact that one percent of all babies are born with ambiguous genitalia, however, fifty percent are not diagnosed until the child is six months or older. In these cases, the child has been assigned a gender at birth before the ambiguous genitalia is diagnosed. The parents of these children are subject to CPS investigations if they even seek therapy or treatment for their child. In addition, gender is also simply misdiagnosed at birth. Assignment of the wrong gender happens when a female infant has an enlarged clitoris which is mistaken for a male penis. Also, female infants with closed or fused labia resemble a scrotum and even lumps in the labia appear to be testes. These children would be subjected to laws that label them according to the gender assigned at birth, prohibited from the change of the assigned gender, and subject to rejection for sports and other activities. Ambiguous genitalia includes documented cases of individuals with a penis and scrotum, assigned male gender and raised as a male until puberty when medical issues led their doctors to discover the child also had ovaries and a womb. In Texas, parents of these children are prohibited from even seeking therapy or treatment for this child. These cases, are documented but are not reported due to the sensitive nature and potential harm these children may face from the trend of hate for anyone different in American society. if Karma is real, Abbott and Paxton should have to experience this in their own family, and when they seek medical assistance they should be referred to child protective services for investigation. Medical procedures which affirm one gender over another have been decided through medical protocol and parents' decisions, but under Paxton’s interpretation, would provoke a government investigation. Governor Abbott and AG Paxton are obsessed with so much hate for trans children and their parents that they have spent enormous resources to punish and eliminate them. Those identifying as trans are less than two percent of all high school children. There is no evidence of any harm caused to others by trans people. None. 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