The Austin City Council passed protections for gender-affirming care on Thursday, just days after the state of Texas filed a lawsuit over Title IX changes that grant protections to transgender people.
“Transgender people deserve the right to self-determination,” Councilman José “Chito” Vela, one of the resolution’s sponsors, said at a city council meeting Thursday in Austin.
“Our state has forced them and their medical providers into hiding, and that is wrong,” Vela continued. “Austin should not participate in this any more than we legally have to.”
A draft resolution states that “except to the extent required by law, it is the policy of the City that no City personnel, funds, or resources be used to investigate, criminally prosecute, or impose administrative sanctions on” transgender and non-binary people seeking health care or those who provide healthcare to transgender and non-binary people.
The resolution’s passage comes shortly after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued the Biden administration over a final set of changes to Title IX, unveiled last month, that add protections for transgender students into the law federal civil rights law on discrimination based on sex. The changes will come into effect at the beginning of August.
“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX on a whim, destroying legal protections for women for the sake of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton said Monday in a press release.
Paxton also criticized Austin’s resolution in a statement Thursday, saying it is “fraught with problems.”
“If the City of Austin refuses to follow the law and protect children, my office will consider all possible responses to ensure compliance,” Paxton continued in the statement. “Texas municipalities do not have the authority to choose which state laws they will and will not comply with. The people of Texas have spoken and the Austin City Council must listen.”
The Texas Supreme Court allowed a state law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth to take effect in August 2023 after a legal battle over the legislation.
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