 That was grassroots activists at the Texas State Capitol protesting the governor's new directive to investigate Parents with trans children if they seek out gender affirming care for their trans children. So in other words, if you are loving Accepting an affirming parent you were a child abuser according to Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson And I talked about this last week on the program But the investigations have already begun as J. David Goodman of the New York Times reports Texas officials have begun investigating parents of transgender adolescents for possible child abuse According to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday after Governor Greg Abbott directed them last week to handle certain medical treatments as possible crimes Among the first to be investigated was an employee of the state protective services agency who has a 16-year-old transgender child on Tuesday the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Lambda legal went to state court in Austin to try to stop the inquiry The employee who was not named in the court filing works on the review of reports of abuse and neglect She was placed on administrative leave last week according to the filing and on Friday was visited by an Investigator from the agency which is also seeking medical records related to her child the family of the child identified in court documents only as Mary Doe has refused to voluntarily turn over records We are terrified for Mary's health and well-being and for our family wrote the employee in a declaration filed with the suit in Which she and her husband are identified as Jane and John Doe quote I feel betrayed by my state and the agency for whom I work She added not providing Mary with the medically necessary health care that she needs is not an option for us And that's really important So gender-affirming care is medically necessary not only does it reduce depression, but it also reduces Suicidality, this is why the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics all say that gender-affirming care for trans youth Is not only appropriate but necessary because this is what is needed to help them But Texas is saying no no no we know more than the experts and the parents themselves and we will intervene into these families and Unilaterally say if you seek out gender-affirming care for your trans child, which is the right thing to do We're going to treat you as a child abuser and ironically they're treating somebody who works for the state of Texas who actually has experience Investigating instances of abuse and neglect as a child abuser as if this person wouldn't know What is and isn't child abuse, but because they love their 16 year old trans child Well, this family is being treated as criminals by the state of Texas why? For political purposes, it doesn't really matter what their reason is. It's bigoted and this is I don't even know how to describe it But here's how one person did this is what Charles says about this on Twitter He describes this as a witch hunt the Salem witch trials inquisition style attack on trans youth and gender-affirming care And their parents is one of the most shameful examples of far-right politicians exploiting human lives for partisan political Purposes no wonder they want to block people from voting and that's exactly it I made this point on my show last week when we talked about this But we just heard for months the far-right screech about mask mandates in schools and vaccine mandates saying that the state Shouldn't be allowed to tell parents how to parent, but here they are treating loving parents as child abusers because they have a political agenda because they want to Eradicate trans children out of existence by force of the state. It's just it's truly Morally reprehensible and what makes matters worse is the widespread ambivalence that I'm seeing I think that a lot of people expect transphobia from these far-right Legislatures or legislators controlled by far-right politicians and governors, but this is so Removed from anything that we've seen thus far This is literally the state of Texas seeking out parents who love their children who seek out medically necessary gender-affirming care and Trying to get their children taken away from them I mean I understand if you claim that a parent is subjecting their child to child abuse if Gender-affirming care is child abuse the implication is we take that child away from you We remove that child from said abuse of situation. So it's just it's truly Egregious and this is a human rights violation and every single business who claims to care about LGBTQ rights They better be boycotting Texas I mean this is every amount of pressure that we can apply has to be applied because it's it's come to a point where People in Texas who have trans children, they're not safe. They have to leave I mean, what else do you do you can either choose to not seek out gender-affirming care for your kid and Let them be depressed and miserable and possibly kill themselves or you do what the experts say you should do and You get treated as a child abuser you get placed on an administrative leave in this case here I'm choosing my kid if I'm a parent here. I'm telling the state of Texas. Fuck you What's sad is that people don't have the resources to leave in a lot of instances so they kind of just have to put up with it and do what's best for their kid and Hope for the best hope that the state doesn't investigate them, but they're already doing that. They're seeking out Parents who love their children. It's ridiculous. It's just I don't even know I'm honestly. I'm speechless at this story. I'm taking it back because the details are so gruesome this is happening in the United States in 2022 and People don't really seem interested in this story. I get that there's a lot going on in the world This is something that requires the utmost Care and concern and everyone should be making noise about this if you care about children So, you know, the real child abuse is what Texas is doing to these kids If they remove children from these households Then the damage will be irreparable to these kids. So I don't know what to say. It's just this is Nauseating to see but this is where we're at in the United States of America