Big-name companies urge Texas to reverse actions on trans surgeries, treatments for kids

Dozens of big-name businesses are pushing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to backtrack on state efforts that have been condemned as harmful to the LGBT community, saying “discrimination is bad for business.”

Sixty-five companies in all signed the letter, which ran in a full-page ad in The Dallas Morning News in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and took exception to formal moves to describe gender-affirming surgeries and treatments as “child abuse” and investigate any instances in Texas.

The companies include Apple, Capital One, Google, Ikea, Johnson & Johnson, LinkedIn, Macy’s, Microsoft, PayPal and Yahoo, according to CNN.

“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,” they wrote in the letter, which was published at the end of last week. “This policy creates fear for employees and their families, especially those with transgender children, who might now be faced with choosing to provide the best possible medical care for their children but risk having those children removed by child protective services for doing so. It is only one of several efforts discriminating against transgender youth that are advancing across the country.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton compared the procedures, including prescriptions that can affect puberty, to child abuse in a February opinion, prompting Mr. Abbott to call for a state investigation “of these abusive procedures in the state of Texas.”

A judge on Friday blocked Mr. Abbott’s executive order, saying the governor stepped beyond his authority and parents of transgender children who sued the governor were likely to succeed at trial, though Mr. Paxton vowed to fight on.

“Democrat judge tries to halt legal and necessary investigations into those trying to abuse our kids through ‘trans’ surgeries and prescription drugs,” the attorney general tweeted. “I’m appealing. I’ll win this fight to protect our Texas children.”