Texas despises it when progressive ideas invade our traditional territory, but it’s obvious that we don’t mind stepping on other states’ toes.
Last year, it was reported that Seattle Children’s Hospital had filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for alleged violations of the law that required information of transgender Texans receiving gender-affirming care. Legislators from the Lone Star State have outlawed such care for trans youths.
Not everyone is enjoying Texas’ use of strong arms. Consider Washington state senator Drew Hansen, who introduced a rule ensuring access to reproductive and gender-affirming care in that state.
Hansen and company understood that Texas or other anti-abortion states might one day try to clamp down on reproductive rights outside of their respective borders even before Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.
According to Hansen, “If states like Texas are going to be inventive and aggressive in restricting reproductive freedom, then Washington State can be imaginative and ambitious in fighting back.” That is what the Shield Law accomplishes.
The Shield Law protects people in Washington who are seeking and providing reproductive or gender-affirming treatment. Hansen hoped that the legislation would never need to be enforced. However, Paxton’s recent actions clearly demonstrate its necessity.
According to Hansen, the law effectively forbids other states from enforcing their own onerous healthcare laws through Washington’s courts and administrative processes, such as warrants, subpoenas, and extradition.
He quoted a well-known Texas proverb in an article for The Washington Post that was published last month.
“They say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas.’ Don’t mess with Washington State,” Hansen advised in that article. “Here, we make our own laws.” Because of the legal decisions they made, people in other states are not allowed to abuse them around.
Texas now forbids abortion and gender-affirming care for trans minors, but our conservative leaders are still pushing the envelope.
In an effort to prevent Texans from ending their pregnancy in a location where it is still legal, some cities and counties in this area have considered or passed pregnancy travel restrictions. After Paxton threatened legal action against any cooperating doctor or hospital, one Dallas woman with a non-viable fetus, Kate Cox, recently left the state to have an abortion.
Before such care was formally outlawed by state law, Paxton even looked into hospitals in his home state for providing transgender youth with gender-affirming care.
“Texas serves as a reminder of tyranny, according to Americans paying attention.” – Kathleen Thompson, Texas Progress.
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According to the lawsuit filed by the Seattle hospital, Paxton’s demands “represent an illegal attempt to research and chill potential federal commerce and travel for Texas residents to another state.” The doctor contends that the AG’s office lacks the power and authority to request the information.
The attacks on LGBTQ+ rights by Republican officials have already forced some Texans to leave their homes. Earlier this year, a family from North Texas told the Observer that they had fled to Colorado out of concern for their trans child.
She remarked at the time, “We had a good-sized LGBTQ community down there. And I’m afraid for them all.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 35% of transgender children live in a state where laws prohibiting gender-affirming care have been passed by politicians. Texas is one state that has considered banning treatment for transgender individuals up to the age of 26.
The AG is just one Republican in Texas who has targeted transgender children. Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that state child welfare officials investigate the supportive parents of transgender children for alleged “child abuse.”
According to The Washington Post, hospitals in Dallas, Houston, and Austin have been investigated by Paxton’s office, which has forced them to close or stop offering such service. Additionally, it has requested information from Texas’ Department of Public Safety regarding drivers who changed their driver’s licenses’ gender.
Executive director at Progress Texas, Kathleen Thompson, urged people not to look away. In an email sent in reference to the children’s books from A Series of Unfortunate Events, she said, “If you aren’t directly affected, it might be easy to laugh off Texas AG Ken Paxton as a modern-day Count Olaf villain chasing the Baudelaire children to all the ends of the Earth to distract from Republican failures.”
She continued, “Americans paying attention see Texas as a reminder of tyranny. When we vote for candidates who support the freedom to control our own bodies and futures, to easily elect our officials, and to live in communities safe from violence and pollution,” we can end the suffering in 2024.
Thompson added that Paxton was dubbed the worst Texan of 2023 by her organization. For the (dis)honor, he outdid both the governor and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. She continued, “Queer Texans rightly made our top five best,” at the same time.
According to her, “Progress Texas stands with LGBTQ+ Texans in their continuous struggle to survive, to self-express, and to participate in society in the face of focused Republican attacks.”
