On Monday night’s episode of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes freaked out over Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordering the state’s child protective services to investigate reported instances of children receiving transgender surgeries, ironically accusing Abbott of being the real child abuser.
The deranged host started off by viciously attacking Abbott claiming he “found it helps him politically to be cruel to transgender children.” He then claimed Abbott denies the “very existence” of transgender children, despite the fact that there’s no such thing as a transgender child, the transgender ideology needs to be instilled in children by their parents or other adults.
This brings us to the reason for the Hayes meltdown. In his wailing over the order, Hayes claimed it “takes what used to be normal care for trans kids and classifies that care as child abuse in the eyes of the state.” As if chemically castrating children is “normal care.”
Hayes continued on his deranged rant:
Abbott has instructed licensed professionals like doctors and teachers to report claims of trans children receiving transition care. Again, a health care decision being made within a family by the parents of the kid, and the state coming in and reporting it and ratting it out. Adding that existing laws contain criminal penalties for not doing so. And this in turn is forcing state employees who work in family protective services to investigate these families for child abuse ok? Showing up at people's homes, again, agents of the state under a Republican Governor, they're showing up at people's homes for the crime of allowing their child to receive crucial medical treatment under supervision of a doctor.
Later in the segment, Hayes referenced an NBC News report which claimed: “families of trans children are now fleeing the state so their kids continue to receive treatment.” “And it's not just families who are fleeing either” Hayes fretted. “child protective services workers in Texas are quitting en mass to avoid complying with the order.”
He tried to turn this around on Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans by claiming they are the real child abusers because the order protecting children from being injected with hormones is forcing child protective services workers to quit:
Republicans try to score very cheap political points by painting their enemies as child abusers and smearing trans adults as trying to groom or indoctrinate children. They are chasing out the people whose actual job day in and day out every time when they wake up in the morning and go to work is to actually protect children and investigate abusers. Greg Abbott's order is child abuse.
If anything, this order helps weed out the people who aren't fit to work in child protective services. If someone finds preventing children from being mutilated so offensive, then they shouldn’t be allowed to be anywhere near children.
This vile segment of Chris Hayes melting down over Texas protecting children from abuse was made possible by Volvo and Ancestry. Their information is linked.
To read the transcript of this segment click “expand”:
MSNBC’s All In
4/11/2022
8:42:44 p.m. EasternCHRIS HAYES: We've been talking quite a bit on the show about the toxic and insidious nature of recent right-wing rhetoric which paints Democrats and liberals of sympathetic to child abusers. Or even as child abusers themselves, without any evidence. Aside from how degrading that is in the political discourse, it's also just tangibly dangerous for children who are actual victims of child abuse. And here's the most recent case study of what looks like on the ground. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has found it helps him politically to be cruel to transgender children. To deny their very existence. And so the recent order he sent state officials is already hurting these children, their families, and care providers.
This order takes what used to be normal care for trans kids and classifies that care as child abuse in the eyes of the state. And Abbott has instructed licensed professionals like doctors and teachers to report claims of trans children receiving transition care. Again, a health care decision being made within a family by the parents of the kid, and the state coming in and reporting it and ratting it out. Adding that existing laws contain criminal penalties for not doing so. And this in turn is forcing state employees who work in family protective services to investigate these families for child abuse ok? Showing up at people's homes, again, agents of the state under a Republican Governor, they're showing up at people's homes for the crime of allowing their child to receive crucial medical treatment under supervision of a doctor. And while this barbaric order is just a few months old, Governor Abbott has been trying to push it for nearly a year. But by his own admission, he needed to develop a workaround, because his plan was too extreme to pass the Republican-controlled Texas House.
[cuts to audio]
MARK DAVIS: Curiously absent was the notion of a law to make it illegal to carve up our kids or pump them full of hormones in order to change their sex when they are still minors. Why wasn't that in the call?
GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT: Because we have another solution that will address that problem that will be announced shortly, so, I know you would like me to announce that on your show –
DAVIS: I would.
ABBOTT: And maybe I will, but not today. But the solution should be announced within the next week. I'll be candid with you and I'll tell you what everybody knows. And that is that the chances of that passing during the session in the House of Representatives was nill.
[cuts back to live]
HAYES: Right, so the House Republicans in Texas, okay, were not anti-trans enough for Abbott and his right-wing talk show host buddy to sick the state on parents providing health care for the kids. Now, as NBC News reports today, families of trans children are now fleeing the state so their kids continue to receive treatment. And it's not just families who are fleeing either, the Texas Tribune is out with a great new report today, horrifying as it is, outlining how child protective services workers in Texas are quitting en mass to avoid complying with the order. One such employee, a man named Morgan Davis who himself is trans, at first, Davis thought it might be reassuring to the terrifying families to see a trans man running the investigation. But after his first visit, he realized, that was not the case. Quote, the family's lawyer didn't see it that way. She said, I know your intentions are good, but by walking in that door as a representative of the state, you’re saying in a sense that you condone this, you agree with this, Davis said. It hit me like a thunderbolt, it's true, he said. By me being there for even a split second a child could think they’ve done something wrong.
Morgan Davis quit shortly after that encounter. As have half a dozen others according to the Texas Tribune reporting. One employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they felt conflicted. On the one hand, they could not enforce this immoral ruling in good conscious, but on the other hand, a mass exodus of state employees investigating legitimate child abuse only hurts victims. Quote, things are already slipping through the cracks. We will see investigations that get closed where intervention could've occurred, and children will die in Texas. That is the gross irony here, as Republicans try to score very cheap political points by painting their enemies as child abusers and smearing trans adults as trying to groom or indoctrinate children. They are chasing out the people whose actual job day in and day out every time when they wake up in the morning and go to work is to actually protect children and investigate abusers. Greg Abbott's order is child abuse.
