Gregory Wayne Abbott (born November 13, 1957) is an American attorney who has served as the 48th governor of Texas since January 20, 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Abbott previously served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015. He is the third governor of any U.S. state to permanently use a wheelchair. He is also the first disabled governor in Texas history.
Texas District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum Friday evening declared unconstitutional Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order manding state agencies investigate anyone involved in or facilitating medically-necessary gender-affirming care, including parents, for “child abuse” and criminally charged if possible.
Judge Meacham issued a temporary injunction, declaring the order, The New York Times reports, “had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution,” She scheduled a trial date for July.
But in a stunning development the Times adds that child abuse investigators “have been told to prioritize cases involving the parents of transgender children and to investigate them without exception, after the state’s governor ordered certain medical care to be treated as abuse, an investigations supervisor said during the hearing.” That news comes after a report earlier this month in Forbes that found Governor Abbott’s “campaign defended the governor’s directive calling for child abuse investigations into parents of transgender children who have received gender-affirming care … with campaign officials calling the issue a ‘winner’ for the governor’s campaign … in spite of widespread controversy and opposition from medical experts.” The supervisor, Randa Mulanax of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, The Times adds, “testified in an Austin courtroom that the agency was not given the freedom to determine that a given report involving a transgender child was quite likely not in fact a case of child abuse — known as ‘priority none’ status — and that investigators were not able to close the cases.” “I’ve been told about that directly,” said Ms.