As the fight to protect children in Texas continues, more than 60 major corporations—including some that receive taxpayer money—are stepping into the conflict and promoting experimental “transgender” operations on minors.
Apple, Google, PayPal, Meta (Facebook), Macy’s, LinkedIn, and dozens of big businesses signed onto the Human Rights Campaign open letter urging Texas politicians to “abandon efforts to write discrimination into law and policy” and allow the disfiguring procedures, which include cutting off the healthy breasts of adolescent girls and chemically and surgically castrating minors.
The letter is a retaliation against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent legal opinion on the issue—in which he called the experiments “child abuse”—as well as Gov. Greg Abbott’s subsequent letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, ordering them to investigate such cases in the state.
“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” the corporations’ letter read.
The overall issue in Texas drew an international spotlight several years ago with the child abuse case of Dallas-area 9-year-old James Younger, whose mother told him he was a girl and wanted to force him—against his father’s wishes—to take sterilizing puberty blocker and cross-sex hormone drugs and eventually be castrated.
James’ case became a statewide rallying cry on the issue, with the Republican Party of Texas making it a legislative priority and more than 2 million GOP primary voters supporting a ban on the operations. However, at the state Capitol in Austin last year, top Republican lawmakers repeatedly killed the effort, and Gov. Abbott refused to add the proposed child protection law in the Legislature’s three special sessions. (Abbott then blamed other lawmakers and passed the political hot potato to AG Paxton, who announced his 13-page formal opinion three weeks ago.)
Since then, local officials across the state have resisted (passing resolutions defying the order), and numerous Democrat district attorneys have announced they will not prosecute such cases.
Notably, some of the corporations that signed onto the recent letter have also collected taxpayer cash bonuses and other exclusive perks, thanks to state and local politicians.
Citizens reacted to the letter.
“Why is it that kids are encouraged to mutilate their bodies, but heaven forbid they go through puberty first?” one individual replied on social media.
“Mutilation of children is a human rights crisis,” another wrote.
Amid the latest events in the Texas saga, citizens and pro-family organizations are again exhorting Gov. Abbott to reconvene the state Legislature and finally enact a law to ban the operations in Texas. In the recent March statewide primary election, nearly 2 million GOP voters again overwhelmingly supported putting an end to the experiments.
Meanwhile, Arkansas and Tennessee have passed similar child protection laws, and Idaho and other states’ legislatures are also considering proposals.
