Houston, United States | AFP | Installed in her garden in front of a half-American half-rainbow flag, Rebekah Bryant expresses her outrage at the decision of the state of Texas to declare illegal the hormonal treatments that she plans to prescribe to her eight-year-old transgender daughter when she reaches adolescence.
“They want to deprive my daughter Sunny of her future right to care,” the 38-year-old showgirl said as she watched her children collect eggs from their chickens after a school day.
In a letter dated February 22, Republican Governor Greg Abbott directed his administration to “promptly and thoroughly investigate any reported cases” of treatment of minors in the context of gender transitions. And he added that criminal sanctions are foreseen against any teacher, doctor or nurse who has not reported them.
The threat did not go unnoticed.
On March 4, the largest pediatric hospital in the United States, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, declared a “pause” in these treatments “in order to protect health professionals and families from possible criminal prosecution.”
Texas Child Protective Services has launched several investigations against parents of transgender children, but an Austin judge on Friday decided to suspend Abbott’s directive, ruling it unconstitutional.
Numerous local prosecutors previously announced that they would not comply with the governor’s orders, considering them illegal.
President Joe Biden considered for his part that “the discriminatory actions of the state of Texas endanger the lives of children.” “Children, their parents and their doctors should have the freedom to make the best medical decisions for these young people without politicians getting in the way.”
– More time –
The state parliament has already discussed several dozen pieces of legislation around transgender minors that, among other things, would equate their hormone treatments with child abuse or deprive doctors who prescribe them of insurance.
Tired, the members of the Bryant family decided a year ago to make their case known and go to the Texas Capitol in Austin to beg the congressmen to leave them alone.
Hormonal treatments, whose prohibition is debated, are only administered in adolescence and do not yet worry Sunny, who will be nine years old in April.
Prescribed and supervised by doctors, they are intended to block puberty.
For the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, “there is insufficient medical evidence that the interruption of these treatments allows a normal resumption of puberty.” He also thinks that these treatments can generate “mental or emotional damage” comparable to abuse.
Sunny “doesn’t need medical intervention right now. All she needs is acceptance and love,” says her mother, Rebekah.
“But if you go through male puberty you won’t be able to reverse the changes in your forehead or the appearance of Adam’s apple and facial hair without dangerous and expensive surgeries,” he says, before outlining the advantages of puberty blockers.
“They give the child more time” to decide on their gender identity, she says.
– ‘Proud to be trans’ –
Coming from a very conservative background in South Carolina, her husband, Chet, reluctantly accepted the new celebrity in their family.
“I don’t like it, that’s for sure. What’s the point of saying publicly if my son wears a dress or pants? (…) It only matters for political reasons,” he admits in a calm but determined tone when he receives AFP in your living room in Houston.
Rebekah Bryant says Republican lawmakers “know they can rally their base and get them to vote if people think it’s going to save some poor kids.”
“The only reasons why transgender children are targeted are political,” agrees Houston Democratic legislator Sylvia Garcia from Congress in Washington.
Contacted by AFP, the offices of the Texas governor and attorney general did not respond to requests for interviews.
Meanwhile, Sunny assures between smiles that she feels good and “proud to be trans”.
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, her hair long over her shoulders, the girl blurts out, “I don’t care how people perceive me.”
Sunny is already “a very strong voice for kids across the state and across the country…Imagine what she can do when she reaches her full potential” at 18, says Sylvia Garcia.
“I hope Abbott and Paxton are ready for it.”
