‘Matter of life and death’: Two Texas mothers urge lawmakers not to pass transgender bills
Karen Krajcer arrived at the Texas Capitol on April 12 to fight for her daughter.
The Austin woman was one of hundreds at the capitol that day urging legislators not to pass laws that they say are harmful to transgender children. Krajcer is opposing several transgender bills that ban certain medical care for transgender youth and would criminalize affirming healthcare.
“These bills seek to break up loving, stable families just because parents support their children,” Krajcer said during her public testimony to the Senate Committee on State Affairs.
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Krajcer said her daughter had gender non-conforming preferences before the then-6-year-old, who was born a male, told her parents she had always known she was a girl.
If the Krajcer family decides in the future to provide hormone blockers for their daughter, who is now 9, the parents could face child abuse charges if SB 1646 passes, a bill that would make it against the law for parents to allow their children to medically transition.
State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, introduced the legislation after the disagreement between estranged Texas parents over whether their child was transgender made national headlines and received attention from both Gov. Greg Abbott and former President Donald Trump.
There are also six bills up for legislation that would require children to participate in sports according to their assigned gender at birth. State Rep. Cole Hefner, who also co-authored HB 1399, wrote one of the transgender sports bills and said their is a “growing concern about the safety of female athletes when it comes to biologically born males competing in female sports.”
The Texas University Interscholastic League’s deputy director has disputed the politician’s claims, the Houston Chronicle reported.
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Testifying against any of these bills publicly is risky for the families because it puts their children in the spotlight, Krajcer said. She was not comfortable using her daughter’s name for the story.
“Lots of parents with transgender children will only submit written testimony under a pseudonym — if they do even that — because to be an advocate for your children, you are putting them out there,” Krajcer said. “You want lawmakers to see trans kids and know they exist and need to be protected, but it puts your kids at risk.”
Rachel Gonzales, a fellow transgender advocate, said adults would come up to the children at the capitol that day and yell at them and accuse parents of dismembering their children. Some eventually had to hide out in a lawmaker’s office, she said.
Gonzales was in Austin with her transgender daughter, who wanted to speak to lawmakers that day but did not get the opportunity. Public testimony was cut off at midnight.
READ ALSO: Despite opposition from LGBTQ, Texas advances bills blocking access to gender affirming health care
“She cried herself to sleep that night because she felt silenced by the people who are supposed to keep her safe,” Gonzales said. “She had been so excited, wrote her speech herself and spent all day with the other kids practicing.”
Gonzales compared the current transgender bills to the controversial 2017 bathroom bill, which would have required transgender individuals to use public restrooms based on their assigned gender at birth if it had passed.
She said some of the lawmakers admitted to advocates that they didn’t totally understand this session’s proposed bills.
“The narrative and language (of these bills) is designed to mislead and shock people, but when you really listen to what gender affirmation care is, you realize how necessary it is for our kids,” Krajcer said. “Legislators don’t understand what it means to be a trans kid or what gender affirmation care means, but they aren’t listening to us and aren’t willing to.”
Krajcer said HB 1399 is “a matter of life and death,” pointing to suicide rates that suggest non-transitioning transgender kids face higher rates of suicide and self-harm.
A 2019 study conducted by The Trevor Project, a national organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth, found that 35 percent of transgender youth admitted to attempting suicide in the last year compared to 7 percent among other children. Another 44 percent of transgender youth said they “seriously considered suicide” in that same time period compared to 16 percent of other children.
Krajcers said her family may move from Texas if they can’t legally provide healthcare for her daughter.
“The solution here isn’t for my family and I to move, that doesn’t solve anything,” Krajcer said. “To even be able to move is a privilege that most families don’t have.
