Transphobia is now the official policy of the state of Texas.
Ostensibly in the name of protecting teens, Gov. Greg Abbott is siccing state government on adults — medical professionals, parents — who are helping teens transition, calling the procedures “abusive.”
Abbott issued a directive to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to “conduct prompt and thorough investigations of any reported instances of Texas children being subjected to abusive gender-transitioning procedures.” The governor’s office, in its press release, pointed to a Texas Attorney General ruling that many gender reassignment procedures — particularly those the governor has called “genital mutilation,” along with prescription of puberty-suppressors and infertility-inducer— are “abuse” under Texas law.
This is a direct, frontal attack on trans teens, on their families, and on the medical community. While there are serious doubts as to whether this is enforceable, Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have made clear their willingness to use state power against those who they view as violating “the norm.” They are sending a message that being transgender is unnatural and against nature and that anyone who helps is engaged in abuse, is endangering kids.
Some will dismiss my concerns as hyperbole. They’ll claim it’s only “certain” procedures, that Abbott and Paxton — both of whom are up for re-election this year — are only responding to parental concerns. This is an election-year ploy, they’ll say. They’re not entirely wrong.
Paxton, in particular, is facing an aggressive primary challenge from his right (hard to believe), and his electoral prospects do appear to have been a motivating factor. Emmett Schelling, executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas, told the Texas Tribune that the timing shows a “voracious political appetite” for “really doubling down on how much they’re willing to hurt trans kids in the state for the sake of their campaigning.”
Even if the governor and AG’s actions lack enforceability, they “double down” by ramping up the anti-trans rhetoric, which in turn will create a more dangerous environment for trans individuals. Language matters because it helps create public perception. By referring to gender reassignment as a “novel trend,” Paxton can dismiss the very real issues trans kids face as they seek to find their place in he world. And by making the claim that “it remains medically impossible to truly change the sex of an individual because this is determined biologically at conception,” he creates an impression that medical science is on his side. “No doctor,” he says, “can replace a fully functioning male sex organ with a fully functioning female sex organ (or vice versa). In reality, these ‘sex change’ procedures seek to destroy a fully functioning sex organ in order to cosmetically create the illusion of a sex change.”
“Illusion.” Sex change in quotation marks. “Destroy.” Likening transitioning procedures to child abuse. Repeatedly using the words “abuse,” “genital mutilation,” “obvious harm,” and “permanent sterilization.” These words are not chosen by accident. They help set the tone and speak to Paxton’s conservative audience, reinforcing an existing transphobia and tarring the kids and their adult allies as threats, as things to be protected against.
The Human Rights Campaign, in an October 2021 report, argues that the stigma attached to trans and non-binary individuals — often from an early age — is “rooted in inaccurate beliefs and politically-motivated attacks on transgender and non-binary identities.” The result can be abandonment by family, homelessness and poverty, and violence.
While language does not lead directly to action, it does influence belief and action. The repeated use of false narratives and language that paints trans and non-binary people as threats — both to the long-held gender norms and in the imagination as dangerous bogeymen out to pounce on young girls (see the rest room debate) — creates an environment in which trans people can be “ignored, ostracized and excluded from full participation in communities across the country,” or demonized and attacked, sometimes physically.
The rhetorical sleight of hand engaged in by Abbott and Paxton — turning those trying to aid a marginalized and often endangered minority into the very personification of abuse — is similar to the language used historically to target Blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants and many other minority groups. The goal is to define groups of people as outside acceptability, as outside the mainstream, and to cut them off from the larger body politic.
The damage that efforts like Abbott and Paxton’s will cause is not theoretical. It is real. Ask a trans person.