El Paso mother describes fear of seeking gender-affirming care in Texas
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A Texas appeals court upheld two injunctions and continued to block the state from investigating families of transgender youth receiving gender-affirming care.
El Pasoans share their feelings about the ongoing legal battle and how it has impacted their lives here in the Borderland.
This has been an ongoing battle since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order in 2022 that called on state agencies to investigate families who seek gender-affirming care.
One El Paso mother, Lori Edwards, says her daughter came out when she was 10 years old and was getting care. It was easy and they felt at ease, she said.
Edwards said her daughter is now 17 years old and they fear for their lives. Now they are forced to travel out of Texas to New Mexico to seek gender-affirming medical care, she said.
Edwards said that while the news of two injunctions being backed by the appeals court should make her feel good, it really doesn’t because in Texas seeking care is considered “child abuse.”
“That’s very much a slap in the face to have somebody who’s never met me decide that I’m a child abuser in some way, shape or form. So much of this is very confusing from a family standpoint. And the reason I say that is because we are taught that we should trust our medical professionals,” Edwards said.
Amber Perez, executive director with the Borderland Rainbow Center, said gender-affirming care is not exclusive to those in the LGBTQ community but to everyone.
“It’s not exclusive to trans youth. Gender-affirming care is for anybody. It’s for anybody who has a cisgendered woman who has low estrogen. She’s given access to hormones. Correct. So that’s gender-affirming care. It’s a male cisgendered man who has low testosterone and needs to be given testosterone in order to have more testosterone. That is also gender-affirming care,” Perez said.
Adolpho Telles, chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, said the issue is child safety and worries about the impact a child might face if parents give into what their children want.
“I think it’s a hard situation. I believe that if you want to make changes to your body when you’re an adult, that’s your business. But when you’re a child, you’re not fully grown yet. You’re not fully mature. You don’t have, in fact, all the facts. And for a parent to take away at a young age the ability for someone to have a child, either a female or male, I think that’s wrong,” Telles said.
Telles told KTSM he believes gender-affirming care for transgender youth is abuse.
“Child abuse is when you are mentally or physically impacting your child for the rest of their lives. And that’s exactly what is occurring right here,” Telles said.
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