 So, unsurprisingly, Republican governors across the country are continuing to use children as political punching bags, specifically LGBTQ-plus children, trans children. And I want to talk about two governors in particular, we'll focus on Glenn Yonkin here in a moment. But first, I want to look at Texas, because earlier this year I talked about how damaging it was for Texas to designate all parents who seek out gender-affirming care for their trans children as child abusers. And now they're investigating parents who seek out gender-affirming care as just that, as child abusers. Now, at the time, we can only speculate what this could lead to. At a minimum, these parents are being terrorized by the state. But at worst, this could literally lead to state-sanctioned kidnapping of trans children where they're taken out of these loving homes, and they're placed with foster care parents who are not affirming of their trans identity, that force them to detransition and psychologically, the damage that this would do to these trans kids would be irreparable. Now to my knowledge, that hasn't happened yet, but there are many families who are under investigation. And I've talked about the effect that this has on families in Texas, but I want to talk about the effect that this has on its protection agencies specifically for children. Because it's not good. So as Dallas News reports, continuing to investigate the parents of transgender youth could put Texas' child protection agency over the brink of collapse, a group of its staff are set in a new court filing. In an August 25th brief filed with the Austin Appeals Court, 16 current and former employees at the Department of Family and Protective Services said there has been an exodus from the agency that could hamper its ability to perform basic and necessary functions. They urged the court to keep the abuse investigations on hold while the policy continues to be litigated. As career DFPS employees, they wrote to respectfully advise the court that DFPS is on the brink of collapse and that the politically motivated decision to compel DFPS employees like themselves to investigate non-abuse of loving and supportive families who merely rely on good faith on their doctor's advice would put DFPS over that brink. The great mass of DFPS employees did not choose the child welfare profession to break up loving families who with no ill motive, malice or negligence toward their child are simply following medical advice and administering medicine under a doctor's supervision they added. That was all caused by one politically motivated decision, this mass exodus that is hindering the DFPS from performing basic functions. Now what are the implications of this? Children who are in abuse of homes, they don't get the attention that they need because now they're overburdened with all of this since many staffers are resigning and the ones who are left, they have increased work loans because of this dumb transphobic policy. So children who are actually in real abuse of situations, they could be harmed because of this policy. So do you understand? CIS kids may actually be harmed as a result of this anti-trans policy. Now the reason why I bring that up is because these lawmakers, they don't care about trans kids but they do care about CIS kids, the straight ones anyways. So perhaps once they realize the damage that they're doing to DFPS and how they are effectively helping to keep kids in violent, unstable situations, bad households, well maybe then they'll reverse it once they realize they're hurting CIS kids. It's sad that we have to like rely on their sympathy for CIS kids and not see the effect that they're having on trans kids but that's kind of where we're at, we're desperate and anything that will stop this horrible policy is going to be welcomed. But yeah, this is how these anti-trans policies sometimes do have unintended consequences. You think that you're targeting just trans kids but no, now you're targeting all kinds of kids, CIS kids as well and it's the same thing with regard to puberty blockers. These are things that a trans young person can get with the consent of their parent and doctor and the right has been hysterical over this because they don't necessarily know about gender, affirming care, they're ignorant. So they say, oh my God, these puberty blockers are so terrible and they want to restrict access to people under 18, not knowing that puberty blockers are also given to CIS girls to prevent them from developing too soon, to prevent them from getting their periods at such young ages but they don't get it and they try to create these arguments based out of fear. Oh my God, puberty blockers, we don't know the long term effects, we don't know the side effects and these are all things that are taken into account whenever you give your children medicine. Like when I was a young man, my parents got me on Prozac because I had obsessive compulsive disorder. Like of course there were side effects but my parents made that decision, they had the autonomy to make that decision in concert with my doctor. But what these conservatives want to do is they want to be the parents. So it's despicable but I don't actually think that this is very surprising, I mean the fact that DFPS is on the brink of collapse, they should have anticipated this because these people believe it or not, they are in this field probably because they want to help families. I'm sure there are some people who are bad actors but like I have a family member who is within this field, she's a social worker and she does this out of a passion for helping people, out of a passion for children and if she were placed in this position I don't know that she would want that job. So I visualize other people in this predicament where they're forced to investigate families as child abusers for doing the horrible thing of seeking out gender for men care for their children, talking to a doctor and it's just, it's sick. Now there are other ways that governors are trying to harm trans children. For example, Glenn Yonkin called on school officials to essentially out trans children. Now if you don't know why that would be really devastating, I'll explain in a moment but let's get to the article here. John Russell of LGBTQ Nation explains Virginia Governor Glenn Yonkin called on school officials to out transgender and gender nonconforming students speaking at a parents matter rally on Wednesday, Yonkin criticized Fairfax County Public Schools Regulation 2603 which allows students to use pronouns, restrooms and other facilities at the school that correspond with their gender identity and does not require school officials to notify parents of students transition. They think that parents have no right to know what your child is discussing with their teacher or their counselor Yonkin said, particularly when some of the most important topics, most important topics that a child may want to discuss are being determined. What's their name? What pronoun will they use? How are they going to express their gender? This is a decision that bureaucrats in Fairfax County believe that they should be able to make without telling the parents the governor continued. Now keep in mind that he got elected off of the whole CRT hysteria so it's not really surprising that he's taking up the whole don't say gay mantle thing or he's at least adjacent to that movement if you want to call it that. But if he were to actually enforce this by law, it would be a disaster because trans kids who don't come out to their parents, it's for good reason. Oftentimes they're not comfortable, not ready to come out or because they're living in a hostile environment. So if they were to come out, they could be in danger. Their parents could abuse them. Their parents could kick them out. When I was a teenager, you know, I didn't want to come out. But my thought was if by, you know, that ever found out that I was gay some way, then I would be kicked out. I'd be on the streets like that. Now thankfully, you know, he never kicked me out. He ended up accepting me. But that isn't the story of every single LGBTQ plus child. So if teachers were actually in a position where they're forced to out their students after previously being safe people to come out to, like this is literally endangering the lives of these students. Studies show that having just one accepting person in the household drastically improves their well being, their mental well being decreases, you know, suicidal ideation and whatnot. So to force trans children into this predicament would be a complete disaster. But this is what Republicans are doing. They don't know how to appeal to voters. So what they're doing is just fear mongering about trans people. And they're focusing on trans kids. Now I always say that you should never punch down on marginalized communities. But they're focusing on children, the most vulnerable, the most innocent in our society. And that is a special kind of evil. So this is what we have to deal with. And anytime you have a state that is potentially floating something like this, you know, does what Texas did or calls on teachers to out superintendents, it's really incumbent on all of us who are allies to push back as forcefully as we possibly can. Because I kid you not, these are policies that kill LGBTQ plus people, and we can't let them stand so these sick fucks can get you know, a couple more political points before the November midterms unacceptable.