TGIF 3/11/22

The TGIF post has always been used to identify individuals or groups of people who've had a pretty good week, or a particularly bad week. 

This week however, I'm highlighting a state that, in my opinion, has had a particularly bad week. Which state gets this singular honor? Texas. 

Now, I've written about Texas several times over the years - after all, they've got Ted Cruz. Here's a sampling: 

• the state's efforts at making sure people don't have to worry about letting their deeply held beliefs get in the way of doing their jobs; 
• Gov. Greg Abbott saying he'll eliminate rape in Texas; and
• the state interjecting itself into medical decisions that should be made by a patient's family, not the government.

So, what's been going on recently that earned them this dubious feature tonight? Plenty.

Last month, Abbott directed the state to investigate parents for child abuse if they allowed their transgender children to receive certain types of medical care. The policy was put on hold; the court ruled it "had been improperly adopted and violated the Texas constitution." The state, of course, appealed. 

Testimony in the hearing brought some ugly details to light, including that  

abuse investigators had been told to prioritize cases involving the parents of transgender children and to investigate them without exception, after the state’s governor’s order. 

Department of Family and Protective (DFPS) staff were told not to put anything about these cases in texts or emails, something they've never been advised about any other investigations. And, it's important to note that the DFPS 

has been the subject of a decade-old federal lawsuit over its foster care system, in which children faced abuse as well as long waits to be adopted or placed in safer homes. Federal monitors have been overseeing the process of carrying out judicial orders since 2019, among them a directive to improve the handling and investigation of reported child abuse.

So yes, by all means, let's focus on trans kids and their loving parents, and not actual cases of child abuse. Makes perfect sense to me (yes, that's sarcasm). As does the state's Department of Health removing LGBTQ suicide prevention resources from its website. 

Instead of listing the phone number, website, and text line for the Trevor Project, as it did at the beginning of February, the website no longer includes any links for LGBTQ youth. Instead, information on the Trevor Project can only be found in a PDF for “Parent and Youth Suicide Prevention” but does not include information about the Trevor Project in the least bit. 

What else? 

We're all familiar with the Texas abortion law, which encourages Texans to turn on each other for bounties if they think a woman has gotten an abortion in violation of the law. Now that I think about it, why didn't they include that part on the trans child abuse directive? 

Anyway, the US Supreme Court (twice) refused to pause the law while the case moved through the Texas courts; the review's finished. 

The decision by the Texas Supreme Court turned on whether medical licensing officials had an enforcement role under the law... writing for the court, Justice Jeffrey Boyd said those state officials have no enforcement authority, “either directly or indirectly.”

So, states now have a free pass on legal responsibility for laws they enact no matter how irresponsible they might be. 

I don't want you to think that Texas only discriminates against women and LGBTQ kids they're equal opportunity discriminators.

A Texas agency discriminated against communities of color when it denied more than $1 billion in federal relief funds sought by Houston and Harris County to help hard-hit areas recover from Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found.

Remarkably, Houston and Harris County didn't receive any money when the state initially handed out funds, even though the whole country saw the photos of the storm damage. You can see them here, if you're interested.

HUD officials said the state agency’s method of doling out the funds “discriminated on the basis of race and national origin” and “substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents,” according to a Friday letter detailing the result of a HUD probe. The land office is in violation of the Civil Rights Act as well as federal housing law, federal housing officials said.

I have a hard time reconciling these headlines with this cheerful statement on the state's website:

There's something for everyone in Texas!

And I can't imagine any state having a worse week than the one that Texas just had - not even Florida.

TGIF, everyone.