upEND Statement on Texas Governor’s Trans Youth Directive

The upEND Movement opposes any efforts made to represent gender-affirming healthcare as child abuse. Gender-affirming healthcare ensures the healthy development of children, and parents who love their children and support healthy development are not abusive. A recent directive by the Texas governor instructing mandatory reporters and directing the state child welfare agency to surveil, investigate, and punish transgender youth and their families is extremely harmful. At upEND, we believe the entire child welfare system, which we more accurately call the family policing system, should be abolished. As it stands, the family policing system continually perpetuates harm against families as a result of its longstanding investment in, and adherence to, anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, and the abuse of other people and communities that have been marginalized. The upEND Movement fully supports the efforts of The ACLU and Lambda Legal to address this harmful directive.

To learn more about this issue and the work that The ACLU and Lambda Legal are doing to protect trans youth and their families, click here.