IF
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is one of the Republicans who would, “Run for President: IF…”. IF Donald Trump decides not to run in 2024. Abbott has to be prepared, to, like his rival in Florida, Ron DeSantis, step into the “breach” should Trump decide to opt out. Stepping into that breach means that Trump voters, the ultimate controlling authority in today’s Republican Party, will turn to Him as the heir to the Trumpian legacy. And to get that done, both Abbott and DeSantis need to have a record of Trump-like pronouncements and achievements.
DeSantis has “made his bones” in the anti-Covid, anti-vaxxer, anti-masker world. He is leading the state of Florida in “personal FREEDOM” (please see Mel Gibson with blue face paint and a kilt every time you hear that expression). That his leadership has cost Florida, the retirement state, thousands of lives isn’t really important. DeSantis has found his niche in the Trumpian world. He’s even out “anti-vaxxed” the former President himself. And he’s made a healthy political profit in the process, “anti-vax” but absolutely pro-monoclonal antibodies. Florida was the state with drive-thru antibody treatment tents. After all, the producer of that Covid drug therapy is a leading contributor to the DeSantis war chest.
Compassion
So Abbott needs an issue to stand out in his own way. And while Texas has made a great performance of tightening their voter laws without evidence of voting corruption, it hasn’t really made the impact he’d like. Add to that the fact that Texas, with the longest Mexican border in the nation, hasn’t managed to build a wall, or make that traditional Trump talking point into a positive “Abbott” position.
There’s one thing you may not know about Greg Abbott. The sixty-four year old man is confined to a wheelchair, the result of a freak accident. While he was practicing law at thirty-one, the former high school track athlete took a break and went out for a jog. A large oak tree splintered as he went by, and fell on him. It shattered his spine and made him a paraplegic. His own website tells the story:
As he lay in a hospital bed, throttled with incomprehensible pain, doctors worked to piece his vertebrae back together. They inserted two steel rods near his spine, which will remain there for the rest of his life. During his harrowing recovery process, Governor Abbott was reminded of lessons he’d learned all his life, especially the lesson of perseverance.
The last politician in a wheel chair with Presidential aspirations was Franklin Roosevelt. It is said that being paralyzed (Roosevelt as an adult from polio) taught him to be more sensitive, more compassionate, and more aware of disabilities and the unanticipated differences that change lives. Abbott may have learned perseverance from his tragic injury. But, at least on one issue, Abbott is demonstrating his complete lack of compassion.
The Issue
The science of gender has made enormous strides in the past decades. Science now knows that “gender”, male or female, is more than just genitalia and X/Y chromosomes. Gender is determined by the brain as well as the body, and we now recognize the reality of someone with the body of one gender, may have the brain of the other. Even more, that difficult realization comes early in life, often in childhood, and is a significant cause of childhood depression and even suicide.
The experts, the doctors, biologists and psychologists; all recognize this is a valid medical and psychological condition. But it goes against the “grain” of traditional American (and particularly) fundamentalist Christian views. As one of my acquaintances wrote on a Facebook post, “Marty Dahlman, it’s not my biological (view), it’s God’s!”
Parents struggle to help their child who realize they are transgendered. For those who recognize it early, support for the child can help them avoid the depression and self-destructive behavior that can come from societal condemnation. And for those who are firmly transgendered, adolescence is a tortuous time. It’s when the body defines itself, regardless of the brain. A transgendered boy is betrayed by his own anatomy, developing into a female.
Legal medical practice prevents surgical interventions until adulthood. But those children can be given drugs that block one side of sexual development, and encourage the other. It can allow a “boy” to live as a boy, and a “girl” to live as a girl, regardless of their birth gender.
Bully Pulpit
But Greg Abbott is trying to put an end to that in Texas. And he’s found a “bully pulpit” attacking trans kids. He wants to declare the practice of prescribing those medications as “child abuse”, and require designated reporters, those who by law are required to report to law enforcement possible child abuse, to “out” those children who might be receiving those drugs. Parents and doctors could end up fined or in jail.
Abbott says he is doing this to “protect” youth. There are approximately 2.5 million 12 to 18 year-olds in Texas (Kidscount). In the United States, approximately 0.7% identify as transgender (Williams). So out of the millions of teenagers in Texas, maybe 17,500 identify as transgendered. Most are not treated by puberty-blocking drugs, which means that Governor Abbott is making headlines as the expense of less than a thousand children.
Abbott, like DeSantis, has been an advocate of “personal FREEDOM” (blue face again). And both Abbott and DeSantis have gone out of their way to demand that individual parents determine what their children learn in school (and what is banned). They wouldn’t want them to be “uncomfortable” by the realities of American History. But when it comes to determining the right medical course to protect transgendered kids – Abbott KNOWS that the STATE OF TEXAS is better prepared to tell them what medical treatment they should have. “FREEDOM” (blue face), except when it might not win Presidential primary votes for the Governor.
He’s playing politics by bullying the most vulnerable.
