Escape Plans, Anxiety, Death Threats: Trans Kids in Texas Are Under Attack

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.them.us/story/texas-anti-trans-sports-law-youth-under-attack

When she was not pushing to defeat anti-trans legislation in her home state, Amber Briggle spent much of this year’s legislative session discussing backup plans with her kids to prepare for a scenario in which child protective services were to separate their family.

Briggle has a transgender son who is in middle school, and among the dozens of other anti-LGBTQ+ bills put forward this year in Texas, one of the worst was a piece of legislation that would classify allowing children and teenagers to medically transition as “child abuse.” This meant that, in theory, she could lose her children for affirming her son’s gender identity.

Her family discussed two main plans that would ensure both of her kids were safely housed with affirming families and kept out of foster care. The first involved quickly packing up and moving the entire family to be with extended family who live out-of-state. However, that poses its own financial challenges, including scrambling to find new work in a place with few support systems. Moving would also mean her kids would have to start over at a new school and make new friends at a time when social support is crucial.

The second was the nuclear option: Briggle consulted with friends to legally adopt her children if Texas had passed the “child abuser” statute, which could have potentially resulted in felony charges against Briggle.

[70sEraVet]

1. My g-d! These kids and their parents need FEDERAL protections!

My first thought is, why would anybody except dedicated bigots want to live there? But then, I remind myself that I live in Tennessee.

[colsohlibgal]

2. So Many Mentally Sick Adults

Especially in places like Texas. It’s like a secondary virus.

[elias7]

3. Any sane person or business should be thinking about leaving that backwards hole

[Bluepinky]

4. Texas is becoming a Taliban state.

Transgender and women’s rights under attack; next will be the rights of homosexuals, non-Christians, etc. If this all continues unchecked, Texas will be only the beginning. Damn you, George W. Bush, you stole the Presidential election and enhanced all of this right wing corruption and craziness.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. No need to resort to Orientalism to make the point. The kind of oppression going on in Texas

has nothing to do with the Taliban; this is home-grown American oppression.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Lunchtime kick.

[Aristus]

7. I wish they could all move to the Pacific Northwest.

We have our own anti-LGBTQ loons here, but not nearly as many as in the Yelp-Review One Star State.

Mrs. Aristus and I may be starting to become a safe house for trans-gender people. My grandson has two trans-gender friends, and they come over every now and then. Mrs. Aristus and I cook dinner for them, and they have a safe place to hang out. We could probably do that for LGBTQ refugees from Texas.

It's so amazing. Twenty years ago, Mrs. Aristus was a conservative Christian Republican, and now she's a very LGBTQ-friendly liberal Democrat.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Afternoon kick.