60 companies want Texas to allow healthy kids to irreversibly mutilate their bodies

The Human Rights Campaign has taken out a full page ad in the Dallas Morning News to display an open letter signed by over 60 companies condemning actions states have made to prohibit doctors from prescribing cross-sex hormones and performing genital mutilation surgery on children.

"Our companies do business, create jobs, and serve customers in Texas," the open letter begins. "We are committed to building inclusive environments where our employees can thrive inside and outside of the workforce. For years. We have stood to ensure LGBTQ+ people — our employees, customers, and their families — are safe and welcomed in the communities where we do business."

The letter continued on to take aim at orders given by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to investigate families for child-abuse if those parents allow children to take cross-sex or puberty blocking drugs, neither of which has been FDA approved for that purpose, or that have facilitated bodily mutilation surgery on their children so that those children's bodies appear as those of the opposite sex, whether genital surgery or double mastectomies of healthy breasts.

"The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of out companies," the letter states.

"This policy creates fear for employees and their families, especially those with transgender children, who might now be faced with choosing to provide the best possible medical care for their children but risk having those children removed by child protective services for doing so," the letter continued. "It is only one of several efforts discriminating against transgender youth that are advancing across the country."

The letter concludes by calling on public leaders in Texas and across the country "to abandon efforts to write discrimination into law and policy. It’s not just wrong, it has an impact on our employees, our customers, their families, and our work."

Signed on to the bottom of the letter are 65 companies, which includes Apple, Ben & Jerry’s, Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, and Yahoo.

While Disney didn’t sign onto the letter, CEO Bob Chapek has announced that they would be donating $5 million to Human Rights Watch. This came after Chapek proposed a meeting with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over an anti-grooming law that prevents activist teachers from indoctrinating K-3 students in gender ideology and makes it illegal for schools to keep secret children's gender transition or gender identity exploration from parents.

In Texas, Abbott has ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to look into reports of procedures for transgender youth such as hormone therapy as child abuse.

This directive came just one day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion finding that sex-change procedures and hormone treatments on children would be considered child abuse under existing Texas law.