Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs law prohibiting medical assistance to transgender minors

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Friday, June 2, a law prohibiting the provision of medical assistance to transgender minors, further expanding in the country the restrictions on access to treatment for the young people concerned.

Greg Abbott thus aligns himself with a position already adopted by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, who had enacted similar legislation in May. Texas and Florida are the second and third most populous states in the United States.

Texas law prohibits medical professionals from prescribing hormone blockers or performing sexually altering surgery on anyone under 18. It will come into force on 1^is september. The legislation includes an exception for minor children already receiving hormone-blocking drugs or undergoing hormone therapy. But it requires, in this case, medical withdrawal over an appropriate period.

The Democrats have denounced violations of fundamental rights. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas on Friday announced legal action against the new law. The governor “Abbott can’t stop trans youth from thriving in Texas, and we’re going to sue him to make sure”she wrote on Twitter.

A dozen American states led by a Republican have decided on restrictions against transgender minors. In March, the President of the United States, Democrat Joe Biden, estimated that such “attacks” against transgender rights were “un-American and had to stop”.

According to a survey conducted for the Trevor Project, “LGBTQ youth are not more vulnerable to suicide because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but rather at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society”.