Greene reposted a right-wing article rife with misinformation to support her cause.
Molly Sprayregen at LGBTQ Nation:
In an effort to promote her anti-trans “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) hurled insults at a mother who has spent years fighting for the right to affirm her trans daughter’s identity.
Greene reposted an article from the far-right Dallas Express News — a publication the Texas Observer has described as a “‘pink slime’ media site that launders conservative propaganda” — that claimed Anne Georgulas could soon gain the right to “castrate” her daughter without her ex-husband Jeff Younger’s permission “because she believes her son is transgender.”
Greene posted in response that her bill would “stop this evil mentally ill mother from castrating her son.”
“Over 70% of Americans agree with my bill. There’s no excuse as to why my bill has not moved,” Greene added. She did not share where the 70 percent stat came from.
The story in the Dallas Express News is about well-known anti-trans activist Jeff Younger — who has been engaged in years of legal battles with Georgulas over how to raise their trans daughter, Luna, whom he consistently misgenders and deadnames.
[...]
According to the Dallas Express, Georgulas has since moved with her two children to California, where she will have a hearing on April 25 likely regarding access to best-practice gender-affirming care for Luna based on her age, though the far-right publication claims Georgulas is seeking permission to “castrate” her. (Trans youth almost never undergo gender-affirming surgery).
In 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill protecting transgender youth and their families fleeing prosecution from states that criminalize gender-affirming care, making the state a sanctuary for trans kids and their families.
[...]
Luna’s story has been used by the conservative media over the years to promote the idea that children are being forced by parents to transition medically. The claim that Younger is trying to “save” his child from hormones and surgery, unlikely treatments for a child her age, continues to be perpetuated.
Greene’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” would make it a Class C felony to provide gender-affirming care to trans minors, make it more difficult for trans adults to access gender-affirming care by banning some health care programs from covering it, and ban medical schools from teaching about gender-affirming care.
In November, Greene lied during testimony in the House when she claimed that there are “many young people that made the tragic mistakes of having mastectomies, having castrations done to them, having genital mutilation surgeries when they were still in their early, uh, teens, um, maybe even before they were teenagers.”
As stated above, genital gender-affirming surgery is not performed on minors in the U.S., much less on prepubescent children. Some older teens can sometimes get mastectomies if they meet stringent requirements, but that’s rare.
Gender-affirming care for pre-pubescent children involves allowing them to wear the kinds of clothes that they want, calling them by a name and pronouns that affirm their gender identities, and generally supporting their self-expression. Puberty blockers — which have been shown to reduce lifelong suicide risk among trans people — are prescribed after the onset of puberty, and hormone replacement therapy is an option for some trans teens who are a bit older.
Vile anti-trans bigot Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) continues her campaign for her transphobic "Protect Children’s Innocence Act", this time by attacking Anne Georgulas for raising her trans daughter Luna Younger, who has since moved to California to protect her daughter from her anti-trans father Jeffrey.
Texas Gov Announced Investigation Into 7 Year Old Boy Being Transitioned
Texas Gov Announced Investigation Into 7 Year Old Boy Being Transitioned
The Texas Gov announced an investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s office and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services into the situation with 7 year old James Younger being forced to transition to a girl.
“FYI the matter of 7 year old James Younger is being looked into by the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.” Texas Gov
What is your take on kids becoming transgender children? Well, in today's current events we will be coving the James Younger case. 7-year-old James Younger o...
Please check out today's upload. Leave any questions, comments, or suggestions you have. Subscribe, like, and share. Click the link below.
Today's video upload: My Take On The James Younger Case
Texas Jury Rules Against Biological Father Trying to Save Son
Texas Jury Rules Against Biological Father Trying to Save Son
Texas? This happened in TEXAS? A Texas jury found that a biological father has no right to stop his 7 year old son from being given gender transition drugs (chemical castration), and now forcibly allows his demented mother to “transition” him to a girl named “Luna.” They also took the boy’s care totally away from the father.
The boy has stated he is afraid to tell his mom that he wants to be a…
Younger, whose run for Texas House was motivated by a battle over his trans child's care, had to cut his appearance at the University of North Texas short.
Trudy Ring at Advocate:
An anti-transgender Texas House candidate who lost custody of his trans child got heckled and shut down by students during an appearance at the University of North Texas Wednesday night.
Jeff Younger, a Republican who is running in House District 63, drew chants of “F*** these fascists” and “trans rights” from students at the Denton school, where he had been invited to speak by the university’s Young Conservatives of Texas chapter. The reaction forced him to end his appearance after about 40 minutes, My San Antonio reports. The event was chronicled in a Twitter thread, now taken down, but some videos of the student reaction remain 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.’”
Younger entered the race for House District 63 last November after a long custody battle over his twin children, now 9. One is a boy, the other a trans girl. Anne Georgulas, Younger’s ex-wife and the twins’ mother, is a pediatrician who has supported the trans child in her transition.
In 2019, a jury in Dallas County awarded sole custody to Georgulas, but the judge in the case ignored that verdict and ruled for joint custody. Younger and Georgulas continued to fight over custody for two more years, and in 2021 another Dallas County judge awarded most parental rights to Georgulas, while allowing Younger supervised visits, according to Courthouse News Service. However, the judge also barred Georgulas from allowing the trans child to undergo “hormonal suppression therapy, puberty blocks, and/or transgender reassignment surgery” without Younger’s consent. (Genital surgery, by the way, is not generally performed on minors.)
Anti-trans bigot Jeff Younger, who is running for a Texas House of Representatives seat, got rightly heckled as a "fascist" at the University of North Texas in Denton this week.
Younger lost custody of their two kids (including a trans daughter named Luna) to his ex-wife Anne Georgulas, and his State House campaign is fueled by anti-trans grievances, such as falsely labeling the affirming of trans children's identity as "child abuse" and deadnaming Luna Younger.
Legislators want to have a say in whether Luna Younger should be allowed to socially transition.
Katelyn Burns at Vox:
Around age 3, Luna Younger started asking to wear dresses. Since the age of 5, she has insisted she is a girl. Now Luna is 7, and during court hearings, physicians, school staff, and family members have all testified that Luna has consistently, persistently identified as a girl.
While Luna’s mother respects her daughter’s gender identity — letting her wear what she chooses, whether it’s nail polish, dresses, or longer hair — Luna’s father does not. He insists Luna is not transgender. These polarizing differences over how to raise and treat a child are why trans families and advocates, as well as conservatives, have been closely watching the custody battle over the Coppell, Texas, trans girl.
After 15 months in court, on October 22, the jury awarded Luna’s mother, Anne Georgulas, full conservatorship of her daughter. It was a decision that brought relief to the trans community and outraged conservatives who believe supporting a trans child’s gender identity is tantamount to child abuse.
People were so riled up online, some sent threats to Georgulas; she was “viciously attacked and threatened by complete strangers,” her attorneys told the Daily Caller. Several prominent Texas officials even added to the fray, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who promised to order the state’s child protective services to investigate Georgulas. State Rep. Steve Toth said he would propose a bill to “add ‘Transitioning of a Minor’ as Child Abuse.”
Two days after the debate boiled over online, Judge Kim Cooks decided to vacate the jury decision. Instead, she granted the parents “joint managing conservatorship,” which is the equivalent of joint custody in Texas. (Cooks has maintained that she did not make her decision based on any government official’s opinion; she has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.) While Georgulas, a pediatrician, had requested that the court order Luna’s father, Jeffrey Younger, to respect their daughter’s gender identity, Cooks said that “the Court finds that the State of Texas has no compelling interest to justify such interference.”
The ruling has brought more questions than answers: When one parent honors her child’s gender identity and the other does not, what does that mean for the child? More specifically, what will it mean for her socialization, her mental well-being, and who she’s allowed to be?
Trans advocates say Cooks’s decision is a dangerous misstep. “Transgender children are among the most vulnerable members of the next generation,” Gillian Branstetter, media relations manager at the National Center for Transgender Equality, told Vox. “We know they experience any variety of godawful barriers to their own success, including bullying and harassment, including psychological distress, often resulting from such harassment, [and] family rejection. … It does a serious disservice to those kids to give any incentive for a parent to reject their child for who they are.”
On Tuesday, Georgulas filed to appeal the judge’s ruling, according to a press release from a family representative. The mother is asking Cooks to recuse herself after allegedly posting about the case on her personal Facebook while deliberations were ongoing. This is after the judge had placed a gag order on Georgulas and Younger from commenting about the case, acknowledging that the publicity from it was affecting Luna’s and her twin brother’s privacy and well-being. (Georgulas and Younger are still currently under gag order; Younger’s attorney did not return Vox’s request for comment.)
Since the verdict, a representative for Georgulas, Karen Hirsch, said that a rock was thrown through a window at Georgulas’s house while the children were sleeping and that Georgulas has been forced to close her pediatric practice after dead animals and graffiti were left outside the door. Meanwhile, parents in Luna’s neighborhood are afraid to send their children to class after Younger had named the school online — they feel their children could be in danger from those trying to attack Luna.
The case has hit a boiling point where lives feel threatened and trans families inside and outside of Texas feel unsafe — all over whether a child should be allowed to wear a dress and be called “she” and “her.”
Before the custody battle, Luna’s father launched a campaign to “save” his child that’s been championed by the far right
The legal battle over Luna — and, ultimately, how she is allowed to identify — reached a tipping point in August 2018 when Georgulas filed for a restraining order against Younger, specifically seeking to prevent him from entering Luna’s school and telling people “that the gender of Luna is different than a girl named Luna.”
In response, Younger petitioned for full conservatorship that same month. Up until this point, he had been allowed to see his kids once a week for two hours and on the first, third, and fifth weekends of each month since 2017, though court testimony indicates he frequently skipped his visitation days. He also launched a social media campaign to “save” his child from the supposed harm of transitioning. For a child of Luna’s age, this is solely social and consists of keeping her hair long, choosing her own clothing, and using a feminine name and pronouns.
However, the conservative campaign spread incorrect fears that Georgulas was seeking to immediately “chemically castrate” the child — a misinformed, scary-sounding reference to hormone medications that would suppress Luna’s testosterone production and replace it with estrogen, which would typically be years in Luna’s future, according to standard medical guidelines. The only plans Georgulas had, according to court transcripts, was to take Luna to a Children’s Health clinic for transgender kids in Dallas. There, they would discuss a plan for potentially starting her on puberty blockers, which are reversible, in the next few years if Luna’s gender dysphoria persists. (The clinic did not return Vox’s requests for comment.)
Seizing on Younger’s narrative of Georgulas manipulating her child, right-wing media outlets like LifeSiteNews and the Daily Wire also accused Georgulas of forcing Luna to be transgender “because she wanted a girl.” But that claim seems rather flimsy because Georgulas has two older daughters from a prior marriage.
In court testimony, Georgulas said that she would prefer if Luna were not transgender, but she supports her child’s gender identity regardless of her own feelings. “From my knowledge as a pediatrician and also from the research I’ve done, it is better to affirm for the psychological well-being of the child … [doctors recommended] that we affirm the child’s choices, whatever those choices are,” she said.
Meanwhile, Younger made the conservative media circuit rounds, insisting it was Georgulas who was forcing Luna to present as a girl. Luna “presents as a boy with me and [she] presents as a girl with his mom,” Younger told LifeSiteNews, a conservative Christian website, in September. “[She] gets dressed as a boy at [her] mother’s home and [she] comes out to me as a boy. That means that [she’s] comfortable as a boy at [her] mother’s home.” Georgulas and others who have testified have disputed this latter part, saying it was Younger forcing Luna to present as a boy.
Maternal blame appears to be common when it comes to trans children of estranged couples. While data on the number of trans children involved in custody disputes doesn’t yet exist, a Family Court Review study released earlier this year examined the cases of 10 divorced mothers who affirm their child’s trans- and gender non-conforming identities. In each of the 10 cases, the child’s father blamed the affirming mother for “causing” the child to be trans, and courts gave a favorable ruling to the father in four of those cases. However, “parents probably have little or no influence on the child’s core feelings that define him or her as gender typical or gender variant,” the study said.
Overall, conservative media has used the custody case to not only bash transgender people (“When they come for your kid” blared a headline in the American Conservative, which was followed by a roundup of disinformation), but to demonize a mother and small child. “It has resulted in threats, harassment, and even vandalism of my client’s property,” attorneys for Georgulas told the Daily Caller in a statement.
Despite how the far right has painted Georgulas, it is Younger’s character that has come under legal scrutiny. According to court documents of the annulment of his and Georgulas’s marriage, the court found that Younger lied about multiple aspects of his life: his career, his previous marriages, his income, his education, and even his military service. It was enough for a Texas court to annul their six-year marriage because it was entered into under fraudulent terms.
Judge Cooks also called out Younger for profiting off a violation of his family’s privacy. “The father finds comfort in public controversy and attention surrounded by his use of unfounded facts and is thus motivated by financial gain of approximately $139,000 which he has received at the cost of the protection and privacy of his children,” she wrote in her judgment, referring to a crowdfunding and merchandising scheme launched last year by Younger.
Even conservative pundit Glenn Beck expressed concern over Younger’s past. On his radio show, he read the court’s findings of fact showing that Younger acted aggressively toward Georgulas’s older daughters, withholding their possessions, locking them in their rooms, and forcing them to do “plank push-ups” until they agreed to follow house rules.
That aggressiveness was also directed at Luna, according to Georgulas’s attorney Kim Meaders. “[Luna] has said to CPS that she is afraid of her father,” she said in her opening statement. “Her brother has said that she is sad and her father makes her sad. By making her dress in boys’ clothes, that makes Luna sad.”
The right-wing media's disgraceful anti-trans smear campaign against Anne Georgulas, the mother of 7-year old trans girl Luna Younger, has resulted in death threats made against her for affirming her daughter's identity as a trans girl.
What are you to teach your kids when it comes to gender dysphoria? Tune in for tomorrow's video to find out more, 'My Take On The James Younger Case?'
#jamesyounger #savejames #annegeorgulas #dallas #texas #transgender #genderidentity #genderdysphoria #gender
Please leave any questions, comments, or suggestions below.
Texas government officials are parroting right-wing media misinformation about trans youth, including during an appearance on Fox News, as the state is attempting to launch a “child abuse” investigation into a custody battle over a transgender child whose parents disagree about affirming her gender identity. Anti-trans figures have consistently portrayed the affirmation of trans youth as “child abuse.”
Right-wing media outlets have dubiously framed the custody battle as a debate over medical intervention -- despite the fact that the child would not be undergoing any such procedures in the near future. They have also pushed misinformation about medical interventions that are widely supported by medical professionals, inaccurately calling them “chemical castration” -- a false claim which has also been repeated by the Texas attorney general office.
The custody battle is between Anne Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger, two divorced Texas parents of a trans child who goes by Luna and uses female pronouns. Three mental health professionals have diagnosed Luna with gender dysphoria, and Georgulas has accepted her as trans. However, Younger has rejected Luna’s gender identity, insisting she is not trans and referring to her by her former name (commonly referred to as a deadname). According to court documents, Younger “has engaged in increasingly aggressive behavior, including physical force, toward” Georgulas and “emotionally abusive behavior toward the child.” He has also launched an online campaign, fundraiser, and petition all using the name Luna formerly used.
On October 24, a judge ruled that the parents would share joint custody of Luna despite a jury ruling that Georgulas should have sole custody earlier this week. The judge’s decision came after major outcry from right-wing media figures and Texas elected officials, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Texas officials have asked for an investigation into the case as “child abuse”
Right-wing media led an extensive misinformation campaign about the custody battle, which Texas government officials relied on to justify launching an investigation.
Abbott announced on October 23 that the Texas Office of the Attorney General and Department of Family and Protective Services are looking into the custody case. Government officials in the state used that misinformation to justify the potential investigation. Following the announcement, Texas Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Mateer sent a letter and issued a press release requesting that the state Department of Family and Protective Services “conduct a thorough investigation” into “possible child abuse” to “protect the boy in question [from] permanent and potentially irreversible harm by his mother.”
Mateer is an allied attorney with the extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom; at least four other ADF allied attorneys worked in the Texas attorney general’s office in 2018. In 2017, Mateer’s federal judicial nomination was withdrawn after some of his extreme anti-LGBTQ comments were uncovered. Notably, Mateer claimed that the existence of trans youth proves that “Satan’s plan is working,” and he advocated for the harmful and debunked practice of conversion therapy.
On October 24, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick went on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, a friendly show for anti-LGBTQ viewpoints, and claimed that “at seven, you can't make that decision that will change their life forever -- that you cannot come back, particularly if you go through the full treatment into their teen years.” During the segment, Ingraham also called gender-affirming care “child abuse.” In another segment from Fox’s The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino on October 25, Patrick suggested the legislature would explore the issue in its next session.
[...]
Right-wing media’s coverage of the case may have dangerous consequences
In addition to potential legislative or government actions that could affect trans Texans' ability to access care or parents' ability to do what is best for their children, right-wing media’s narrative around their case has put the lives of Georgulas and Luna at risk.
According to The Daily Beast, “A Facebook group with a graphically violent name circulated what they claimed was Georgulas’ address and phone number,” and Georgulas’ attorneys have said she “faced threats, harassment, and vandalism, having been ‘viciously attacked and threatened by complete strangers.’”
Now, the right-wing has the force of the Texas government on its side, with the help of Mateer, an extreme lawyer associated with the powerful and extreme Alliance Defending Freedom, potentially resulting in further action against Georgulas.
