During an appearance at the University of North Texas on Wednesday night, an anti-transgender Texas House candidate who lost custody of his trans child was heckled and shut down by students.
Students at the Denton school chanted “F*** these fascists” and “trans rights” as Jeff Younger, a Republican running in House District 63, spoke. He had been invited to speak by the university’s Young Conservatives of Texas chapter. According to My San Antonio, the reaction forced him to end his appearance after about 40 minutes. The event was documented in a Twitter thread, which has since been removed, but some videos of student reactions are still available.
“Younger, according to the tweets, only egged on the protesters by asking them to make more noise and proceeded to call the protesters ‘Communists,’” the site reports. “Another tweet alleges that Younger said ‘Trans people don’t exist.’”
https://twitter.com/59dallas/status/1499335622766604289
Younger ran for House District 63 in November of last year after a lengthy custody battle over his twin children, who are now nine years old. One is a boy, and the other is a transgender woman. Younger’s ex-wife and the twins’ mother, Anne Georgulas, is a paediatrician who has assisted the trans child in her transition. In 2019, a jury in Dallas County awarded Georgulas sole custody, but the judge in the case overruled the verdict and ruled for joint custody. Younger and Georgulas fought over custody for another two years, and in 2021, another Dallas County judge granted Georgulas most parental rights while allowing Younger supervised visits, according to Courthouse News Service.
The judge did, however, prohibit Georgulas from allowing the trans child to undergo “hormonal suppression therapy, puberty blocks, and/or transgender reassignment surgery” without Younger’s consent. (By the way, minors are rarely subjected to genital surgery.)
Younger claims on his campaign website that the child is not transgender but was misdiagnosed, and that a doctor planned to start the child on puberty blockers at the age of nine. Noting that he has been able to discontinue this treatment, he asks, “But for how long?” We require legislation. Every conservative understands that this is child abuse. Medical transitioning of children is considered child abuse by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. But the Legislature has yet to act.”
Last year, Texas lawmakers considered but did not pass a bill to that effect. Then, in February, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion declaring that gender-affirming medical care for children is child abuse, and Governor Greg Abbott directed the DFPS to investigate parents who allow their children to receive such care.
A family being investigated under the policy, represented by Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday. A Travis County judge ruled Wednesday that the family’s investigation must be halted, and she scheduled a hearing for March 11 to consider blocking the policy more broadly.
On his campaign website, Younger describes any affirmation of trans children’s identity as a “experimental, damaging course of action.” This, of course, contradicts the views of the vast majority of medical and mental health organisations, which assert that both social and medical affirmation can save children’s lives.
In Tuesday’s Republican primary for the House district, Younger advanced to a runoff because no candidate received a majority of the vote. In May, he and Ben Bumgarner will compete in the runoff. Tan Parker, the incumbent Republican, resigned his seat to run for state Senate.
In other Younger-related news, the university is investigating a report that a woman was hit by a campus police vehicle after the event, according to My San Antonio. Kelly Neidert, president of the Young Conservatives chapter, tweeted that she was escorted out of the building by university police, while another Twitter user claimed that the police vehicle in which Neidert was riding was driving toward a group of protesters.
