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Gov. Greg Abbott signs legislation barring trans youth from accessing transition-related care
June 03, 2023
June 2, 2023
"Gov. Greg Abbott signs legislation barring trans youth from accessing transition-related care" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Friday a bill that bars transgender kids from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, though the new law could face legal challenges before it takes effect on Sept. 1.
Senate Bill 14’s passage brings to the finish line a legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. Trans kids, their parents and LGBTQ advocacy groups fiercely oppose the law, and some have vowed to stop it from going into effect.
Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the U.S. — is now one of 18 states that restrict transition-related care for trans minors.
“Cruelty has always been the point,” said Emmett Schelling, executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas. “It’s not shocking that this governor would sign SB14 right at the beginning of Pride [Month]; however this will not stop trans people from continuing to exist with authenticity — as we always have.”
Authored by New Braunfels Republican state Sen. Donna Campbell, the law bars trans kids from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, treatments many medical groups support. Children already receiving these treatments will have to be “weaned off” in a “medically appropriate” manner. The law also bans transition-related surgeries for kids, though those are rarely performed on minors.
Those who support the law claim that health care providers have capitalized on a “social contagion” to misguide parents and push life-altering treatments on kids who may later regret their decisions. SB 14’s supporters have also disputed the science and research behind transition-related care.
But trans kids, their parents and major medical groups say these medical treatments are important to protecting the mental health of an already vulnerable population, which faces a higher risk of depression and suicide than their cisgender peers. At the same time, doctors say cutting off these treatments — gradually or abruptly — could bring both physical discomfort and psychological distress to trans youth, some of whom have called it forced detransitioning.
In response, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center pledged on May 18 to fight SB 14 in court. They have yet to file a lawsuit.
“Transgender people have always been here and will always be here,” Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas, said Friday. “Our trans youth deserve a world where they can shine alongside their peers, and we will keep advocating for that world in and out of the courts.”
This legal threat is not new; some of these groups have sued several other states over their restrictions. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice also joined the legal fight against Tennessee’s ban.
While the lawsuits are tailored to each state, Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal and the director of its Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project, told the Texas Tribune last month that a major common challenge to the laws hinges on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the argument that these laws are stopping trans kids from accessing the same medical treatments that are still available to their cisgender peers.
Buchert added that the lawsuits’ immediate goal is generally to get a preliminary injunction to stop these laws from taking effect, a tactic that has seen some success.
“It’s one thing to see some of the things that state legislators do, but it’s a completely different thing when you’re under the white-hot spotlight of judicial scrutiny,” she said.
And prior to SB 14, the ACLU and Lambda Legal successfully sued Texas last year to halt state-ordered child abuse investigations of parents who provide their trans kids with access to transition-related care. Impeached attorney general Ken Paxton later appealed the decision in March, but the 3rd Court of Appeals has yet to issue a ruling on it.
“It’s a privilege to be able to fight,” Buchert said about the ongoing court challenges that Lambda Legal is involved in.
Disclosure: The ACLU of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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The sprawling slums of Kampala are a far cry from the glitzy stage of Britain's Got Talent, where a group of Ugandan street kids will be performing in Sunday's grand finale of the hit UK television show.
The children of the Triplets Ghetto Kids troupe have already wowed the Britain's Got Talent judges and viewers alike with their energetic dance medley, colourful costumes and beaming smiles.
A straw-roofed hut under a blazing yellow sun is the backdrop for their exuberant stage routine that has propelled them through the talent competition, giving just a hint of their impoverished and often troubled beginnings in the Ugandan capital.
The children were given a new start in life by the Inspire Ghetto Kids Foundation, which was set up in 2007 in the poor Kampala neighbourhood of Makindye by former school teacher Dauda Kavuma.
The 36-year-old -- one of 30 children from six mothers -- recalls how he had to hustle from a young age after the death of his father, rummaging through rubbish heaps to collect scrap or selling fruit to drivers stopped at traffic lights.
Kavuma tells AFP that as a boy his first love was football but he was later encouraged by a friend to take up singing.
"Whenever I sang, I forgot my troubled past," he says, attributing help from his teachers including the head of an Islamic school who paid his fees, for setting him on a path out of poverty.
"Most people thought street kids... have no value in society but I thought otherwise.
"I thought, what if I use music, dance and drama to transform the underprivileged in the ghettos," he says. "My inspiration was my love for music and to pay back to the society that has supported me through my hard life."
'My life's changing for good'
Kavuma's foundation is based in a five-bedroom house in a warren of streets in Makindye, where he takes in homeless, orphaned or disadvantaged children and provides shelter, food, clothes and an education.
The youngsters in his care, currently 30 of them aged from three to 18, have heart-wrenching stories -- some born as a result of rape, others who lost their parents and had to fend for themselves.
"As much as I remember the hard life in the ghetto, at least now I have hope that my life is changing for good," says 13-year-old Priscilla Kisakye, one of those competing in the British show.
Priscilla's parents, both without jobs, found themselves unable to take care of their six children, and she was taken under Kavuma's wing.
Now, Priscilla tells AFP, she is treated by her schoolmates as a celebrity but she thinks of herself as just a normal kid.
And rather than showbusiness, the softly-spoken youngster says her career goal is in law or politics -- perhaps to become "the president of Uganda".
- 'Golden buzzer' -
The Ghetto Kids first became an internet sensation in 2014 when their homemade dance video featuring the hit "Sitya Loss" by Eddy Kenzo, another Ugandan orphan turned music star, went viral.
The clip of several youngsters dancing on a dirt road opened a floodgate of opportunities for the group whose videos on YouTube have had many millions of hits.
They have gone on to win several African and global awards, and have worked with international music stars such as American singer-songwriter Chris Brown and Nigerian Afrobeats star Wizkid.
In 2022, the crew took to the stage at the World Cup in Qatar, one of a number of live performances across the globe.
The Ghetto Kids earned a coveted "golden buzzer" on BGT in April -- which automatically sent them through to the semi-finals on Wednesday.
"This is huge for us, for Uganda and for Africa!" the foundation posted on its Facebook page after they made it through to Sunday's finale.
The winners will scoop a £250,000 ($313,000) cash prize.
Kavuma says the foundation relies on donations from well-wishers, earnings from Ghetto Kids videos on YouTube and TikTok as well as live concerts.
"My dream is to have a bigger home to accommodate and help as many children on the streets as possible," he says.
The current compound is "too small", he adds, watching the youngsters jostling for space as they play football, volleyball or simply run around with car tires.
One of the boys, 13-year-old Madwanah Ssegirinya or "king" to his friends, says the foundation paid for surgery that helped him recover from a playtime injury, and his dream is to follow in Kavuma's footsteps and build another orphanage.
"Above all, (Kavuma) mentored us to be good citizens," Ssegirinya tells AFP. "He is a father and mother to all of us."
© 2023 AFP
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Canada is facing a catastrophic spring wildfire season with massive and powerful blazes out of control in all corners of the country, and thousands more people displaced on Friday.
"This is a scary time for a lot of people from coast to coast to coast," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, alluding to the vastness of a nation on fire stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic to the Arctic oceans.
Some 10,000 people on Friday were ordered to evacuate from Sept Iles in Quebec in the face of advancing wildfires.
Steve Beaupre, mayor of the small city on the St. Lawrence River, declared a local state of emergency and announced the mandatory evacuation after nearby wildfires "advanced very quickly" overnight.
Residents were told in the morning to vacate their homes by 4 pm local time (2100 GMT).
Stephane Lauzon, a member of Parliament from Quebec, told a news conference in Ottawa that as many as 10,000 residents, or one-third of the population of Sept Iles, would be displaced.
This followed the evacuation on Thursday of 500 residents of Chapais in the north of the province.
"The situation is quickly changing in Quebec," Lauzon said, adding that about 100 fires, "many more than yesterday," were burning in the province, including about 20 out of control.
'We need rain'
Canada has been hit repeatedly by extreme weather in recent years, the intensity and frequency of which have increased due to global warming.
Across Canada more than 210 fires were burning on Friday after scorching more than 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres). A total of 29,000 people had been evacuated before Friday's order.
After major flareups in the west of the country in May, notably in the Prairies provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, firefighting shifted in the past week to Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast.
Officials hoped rain and cooler temperatures in forecasts for the weekend following a record-breaking heat wave will bring relief.
"Weather has favored the fires all week, not the firefighters. We're hopeful that this will soon change," Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told a briefing.
"We need rain. Hopefully that rain comes in sufficient amounts this weekend."
Almost 1,000 firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States also arrived or were en route to bolster firefighting efforts.
And Ottawa was deploying the military in Nova Scotia and Quebec to help out, officials said.
'The house is gone'
In Halifax, the largest city in Nova Scotia, busloads of suburban residents were taken on tours for a first glimpse of devastated neighborhoods.
In a video shared by local media, people on the bus could be heard trying to identify items burned or melted. "I think that was my car," a woman says when it stops at the end of a long driveway.
Jason Young told reporters it was "pretty surreal" to see the blackened wooded lots and smoking debris.
"The house is gone. The shed is gone. Everything's gone. On our property, there's nothing left. It's completely gone," he said.
Others weren't ready yet to take it all in. "If I see my property I want to do it with my family, by ourselves, and be able to physically go in and (maybe) sort through stuff," Jody Stuart said, aware that he has lost everything.
About 200 homes, as well as a wooden bridge and a historic private Halifax club founded in 1908, have been destroyed and nearly 20,000 residents have been displaced by wildfires in Nova Scotia.
A few were allowed to return home on Friday after more than a week away.
Houston lamented the "many, many lives turned upside down" by fires, noting a number of people "responding to the fires are evacuees themselves and it's absolutely heartbreaking."
But he also expressed solace: "Though all this despair, zero deaths, zero missing persons, zero serious injuries."
© 2023 AFP
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