DALLAS (CN) — A Dallas-area father is running for the Texas House of Representatives to outlaw sex reassignment surgeries for children after losing a years-long battle for custody of his 9-year-old twins, one of whom is a transgender girl.
Jeffrey Younger of Flower Mound filed to run as a Republican in Texas House District 63 on Nov. 23. He blames a pediatrician for incorrectly diagnosing his child, who goes by Luna, and claims the doctor “planned to put him on chemical castration drugs” when Luna turns nine.
“This is child abuse, as every conservative knows,” Younger says on his campaign website. “Even the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services considers medical transitioning of children [as] child abuse. But still the [Texas] Legislature hasn’t acted. Texas is one of the nation’s largest providers of sex-change surgeries and chemical castration hormone treatments to children.”
Younger accuses the nearby Coppell Independent School District of “right now actively teaching” his child to be a girl.
“When I took James to school in boys clothing, the teacher gave him a dress to wear,” Younger says, using his child’s birth name. “The school doesn’t call James by his real name. They use a girl’s name. They actively teach James that he is really a girl. They even make James use the girl’s bathroom.”
Younger blames “his mother, the courts, the schools and the Legislature” for the situation. He blames the Republican-controlled Legislature for failing to outlaw sex-change surgeries on children in the last two sessions. He refuses to refer to his child by her preferred name, Luna.
Younger’s family first made headlines in 2019 when a Dallas County judge granted ex-wife Anne Georgulas, a pediatrician from Coppell, joint custody of the twins. Judge Kim Cooks defied a jury’s earlier 11-1 verdict that awarded sole custody to Georgulas, declining to intervene in any parental decision over gender identity.
Georgulas admitted during testimony that she may have “over-affirmed” the child’s female identity. Judge Cooks was heavily critical of Younger at the time, stating he “finds comfort in public controversy and attention.” The judge accused Younger of being “motivated by financial gain” after the father raised $139,000 in crowdfunding proceeds.
However, Judge Cooks said she set aside the jury’s findings because the state “has no compelling interest to justify such interference” in requiring Younger to “affirm the child and honor the child’s choices.”
The case dragged on for two more years until four months ago, when Dallas County District Judge Mary Brown granted most parental rights to Georgulas. She granted supervised visits to Younger and barred the mother from beginning “hormonal suppression therapy, puberty blocks, and/or transgender reassignment surgery” without the father’s consent.
Younger says that he plans to outlaw “chemical castration of minors,” block schools for enacting transgender transition without parental consent and reform juvenile justice laws.
House District 63 is currently served by Republican state Rep. Tan Parker, who announced in September he will be running instead for Texas Senate District 12.
Follow @davejourno
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
-
San Francisco sues Oakland over plan to change airport name April 18, 2024