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DFPS Controversies
A three-member Texas Third Court of Appeals (Austin) panel on March 21 reinstated, for now, an order by a Travis County judge that prevents the state Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) from pursuing “gender affirming care” of minors as child abuse.
The justices concluded that the investigations cannot take place until it determines whether Gov. Abbott acted properly when he ordered gender-affirming care to be treated as child abuse.
On a topic related to transgender individuals, Twitter flagged — as being hateful conduct — comments made by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who referred to Admiral Rachel Levine, assistant U.S. secretary of health (who is a transgender woman), as a “man.”
The DFPS was also the subject of a lengthy state Senate Committee hearing (March 17), in which DFPS officials were subjected to harsh questioning, including questions about who knew what, and when, about a Bastrop foster care facility in which an employee reportedly subjected girls at the facility to abuse.
It was also reported that the head of child care investigations at DFPS resigned due to what he said in his resignation letter was that two of his employees, who were recently fired, were being “scapgoated” over the agency’s handling of alleged child abuse at the Bastrop facility.
A preliminary Department of Public Safety investigation said (in this letter to the governor) that while there was no evidence that underage girls were being sex trafficked from the facility, an investigation is continuing over allegations that nude photos were taken of girls in the facility.