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.
‘Wasn’t a Coincidence’: Far Right Wing Group Claims It Spent $750,000 to Lobby Gov. Abbott to Attack Transgender Kids
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week directed the state’s Department of Family Protective Services to investigate gender-affirming health care as “child abuse” and the parents of children who receive such care as perpetrating it.
The directive, which was met with alarm by LGBTQ groups, was applauded by Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project, who took credit for Abbott’s directive on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last Thursday and thanked the War Room for aiding its pressure campaign on Abbott. “We put together a $750,000 grassroots advocacy campaign with the War Room support, and we put pressure on him right before the election,” Schilling said. “It wasn’t a coincidence that he did this.
And Abbott basically instructed all of his state agencies to treat this as child abuse, and it’s now criminal to do this.” Abbott, a champion of the conservative movement, has been accused of not being right wing enough by the Republican Party’s extreme fringes.
Such attacks escalated ahead of Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which Abbott easily won. In Schilling’s telling, Abbott has been insufficiently harsh on the LGBTQ community.
