{"id":50737,"date":"2022-03-01T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T00:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50737"},"modified":"2022-03-01T00:01:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T00:01:41","slug":"this-isnt-child-abuse-gov-abbott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50737","title":{"rendered":"This isn&#8217;t child abuse, Gov. Abbott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">When I think of the term \u201cchild abuse,\u201d I think of someone delivering physical harm to a child, or tormenting them emotionally, or hurling epithets in an effort to denigrate them.<\/p>\n<p>Getting medical care for a transgender child, one who wants to change their gender identity? No.\u00a0<em>Not \u2026 even \u2026 close.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been accused by the right-wing nut jobs running against him in this year\u2019s Republican Party primary of not being \u201cconservative enough,\u201d has declared his intention to label the transgender matter I just described as \u201cchild abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is a gigantic step toward reprehensible governance by someone who has disappointed me greatly ever since he became governor in 2015. My disappointment has now become disgust.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Tribune reports:<\/p>\n<p><em>Shelly Skeen, a senior attorney with Lambda Legal, said it\u2019s highly unlikely that a judge would justify child abuse charges or removal of a child based solely on the use of gender-affirming therapy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cTexas law has a very clear definition of what child abuse is, and it\u2019s not this,\u201d Skeen said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u00a0<em>Child abuse investigations based on gender-affirming care are almost unheard of in Texas. Officials at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services say that there have been three reports last week \u201cmeeting the description in the AG opinion and Governor\u2019s directive\u201d but offered no other details. No investigations have been launched, officials said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/02\/28\/texas-transgender-child-abuse\/\">https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/02\/28\/texas-transgender-child-abuse\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Greg Abbott has lost his marbles if he thinks he can obtain a successful prosecution on gender-affirming care by calling it a case of \u201cchild abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We are heading down the slipperiest of slopes with this kind of nutty proclamation coming from the Texas governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I think of the term \u201cchild abuse,\u201d I think of someone delivering physical harm to a child, or tormenting them emotionally, or hurling epithets in an effort to denigrate them. Getting medical care for a transgender child, one who wants to change their gender identity? No.\u00a0Not \u2026 even \u2026 close. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50737\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This isn&#8217;t child abuse, Gov. Abbott<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[951,1941,2006,4885],"class_list":["post-50737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-child-abuse","tag-gop","tag-greg-abbott","tag-transgender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50738,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50737\/revisions\/50738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}