OPINION:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have recently become the target of mainstream media for issuing a legal opinion that criminalizes the administration of puberty-suppressing hormones to children and reclassifying it as a form of child abuse. The order mandates that “all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children” are required to report to state authorities those that they believe are receiving “gender-affirming treatment” or face criminal punishment.
Opponents of this legal opinion argue that since parents otherwise have decision-making power over their children’s “health care,” they should also hold power to administer such substances to their children’s bodies, and criminalizing such conduct is an example of overreaching government. We disagree and assert that giving underage children such chemical substances is not “health care,” nor is it an example of “overreaching government.”
Our view is that this is a state’s proper use of its 10th Amendment police powers to protect underage children during the legal stage of “infancy,” at which time the law says children lack the mental capacity to consent.
“Minors are prohibited from purchasing paint, cigarettes, alcohol, or even getting a tattoo,” Jonathan Covey, policy director for the group Texas Values, said in a statement last week. “We cannot allow minors or their parents to make life-altering decisions on body-mutilating procedures and irreversible hormonal treatments.”
Proponents of the practice refer to it as “gender-affirming care.” This is an interesting choice of words since “affirming” suggests parents and medical practitioners are merely administering this irreversible, life-altering medical decision to reflect the voluntary will of the child.
However, relying on the mental capacity of underage children to make life-altering medical decisions is otherwise inconsistent with the spirit of the law since adult parents, not minors, are legally charged with making “health care” decisions. To that end, The Washington Post and The New York Times have published several articles suggesting the Texas legal opinion deprives both underage children — and their parents — of rights.
But whose rights are being denied, and whose are being protected?
Some articles on the subject go so far as to suggest that denying such “care” frequently results in “attempted suicide.” The Washington Post reports that “gender dysphoria” is supported by every major medical association in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association.
That may sound authoritative, but even collective determinations by psychological associations are no substitute for how the law views mental capacity during the period of infancy.
There are many different compounded reasons young people consider suicide, and to impugn “gender dysphoria” upon them as the primary or sole reason raises troubling questions. It is hard to tell what children really feel in a society where so many influential adults and parents are openly encouraging “gender-affirming treatment” as the solution to many children’s problems.
Are those feelings really their own, or are they merely parroting what others have told them? Is a child really making the life-altering decision for themselves, or is it their parent who is presumably twice or thrice their age? There is no way to really know. And even if “gender dysphoria” is an appropriate diagnosis, that doesn’t mean administering puberty-suppressing hormones to children is the remedy.
For this reason, when it comes to making this kind of life-altering decision, these two groups, children — and parents — must be treated as mutually exclusive. Yet, neither is qualified to make such a life-altering decision for the child. The child is under the age of consent, and the adult should not be allowed to impugn their own will on a child during the legal age of infancy.
The only person who should have the right to make such decisions is the person who would undergo the “transition” themselves after they have passed a stage of infancy and achieve the legal capacity to consent under the law.
If a child said they were unhappy and needed to have sexual relations or ingest tobacco to affirm their identity, no parent nor the law would permit it, even at the threat of suicide. Obviously, to do so would be harmful and outlandish, and that is the point. Undergoing any form of gender transition should be treated no differently than the aforementioned, which are decisions the law would leave solely to the individual themselves — once they pass the infancy stage and reach the legal age of consent.
Underage children should not be making such decisions for themselves, nor should their parents make it for them. That decision should be reserved for the individual until a child reaches the age of consent so they can make an informed decision for themselves and without so-called “parental guidance.” Simply put, administering puberty-suppressing hormones to children should be viewed as an unacceptable danger.
The Texas legal opinion criminalizing the administration of puberty-suppressing hormones to children does not deny children or parents any rights but rather preserves the rights of the child during their stage of infancy so they are able to exercise them at the legal age of consent, at which time they have the mental capacity to do so.
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