Texas Senate Passes Bill Making Transgender Treatment Child Abuse

The Texas Senate passed a bill this week that would make it child abuse for parents to allow transgender children to get gender transitioning treatment or undergo a sex change before age 18.

On Tuesday, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1646, which would prohibit parents from providing puberty-blocking medication, hormone therapy or surgery to a transgender child while they are a minor. The bill is one of the Legislature’s attempts to prevent children from transitioning before their 18th birthday.

The bill, which was authored by Lubbock Republican Senator Charles Perry, passed in an 18-12 vote that was sharply divided along party lines.

In a Senate committee hearing, there was more than 4 1/2 hours of public testimony by LGBTQ Texans, their parents, and several state and national medical associations.

Opponents of the bill say it intrudes into intimate medical decisions.

Proponents of the bill say it is necessary to prevent children from making irreversible decisions they may regret later.

Parents who break the proposed law would be in violation of the state’s Family Code, which would trigger an investigation by Child Protective Services, resulting in the possible removal of the child from their home.

Doctors who perform sex change treatments would also be accused of child abuse, which could lead to a license investigation by the Texas Medical Board.

The bill now goes to the House, where its chances are unclear.

Tarrant County Defense Lawyers Calling for Investigation into Medical Examiner’s Office

The Tarrant County Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association is demanding an independent investigation into the medical examiner’s office in light of autopsy mistakes in dozens of homicide cases and false or misleading testimony in a death penalty case.

Benson Varghese, President of TCCDLA, presented a resolution to the Tarrant County Commissioners Court on Tuesday during its weekly meeting.

The resolution, which has been passed by the TCCDLA Board, calls for an “independent investigation into the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office and an external audit of the work performed by Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani and Deputy Medical Examiner Marc Krouse.”

It also calls upon the Court to consider whether Dr. Peerwani should continue as the Tarrant County Medical Examiner.

The resolution lays out the numerous issues that have defense lawyers in Tarrant County concerned including:

• In March 2021, a Tarrant County District Court judge found that Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Peerwani provided false, inaccurate, and misleading testimony in a death penalty case in 2006.
• That same month Dr. Peerwani’s Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Marc Krouse, was suspended from performing autopsies in homicide cases due to serious professional deficiencies. Krouse was found to have made at least 59 errors in homicide autopsies over a 10-month period. In one of the cases, a body had to be exhumed as a result of Krouse missing a bullet.

During the Commissioner’s Court meeting, Varghese provided materials to the County Judge, Commissioners Court, and District Attorney. The Medical Examiner is appointed by the Tarrant County Commissioners Court and taxpayers pay nearly $11 million annually for its services.

Varghese told the Court that they want a thorough investigation into Dr. Peerwani’s administration and that a retirement or resignation is not sufficient.

Tesla Facing Questions after Two Killed in Driverless Crash

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation into Tesla following what is believed to be driverless crash earlier this month that left two people dead in a Houston suburb.

Telsa executives deny that autopilot was activated and contend that someone must have been in the driver’s seat.

Just before midnight on Saturday, April 17, two men were killed after the 2019 Tesla S they were riding in crashed into a tree and burst into flames near the Woodlands, about 30 minutes north of downtown Houston.

The crash made national headlines because officials said they were certain no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the wreck.

One of the men was found in the front passenger side of the vehicle; the other was found in the backseat.

The crash is under investigation by the NHTSA and the NTSB who are trying to determine what caused the crash and if autopilot or full self- driving modes were involved.

Tesla owner, Elan Musk, and top executives are firing back. Musk said data logs recovered so far show the autopilot was not enabled. He said the media should be “ashamed” for saying otherwise.

Yesterday, top executives took it a step further and said the steering wheel was deformed and seat-belts were unbuckled, leading them to conclude someone was in the driver’s seat.

Officials are serving search warrants on Tesla to obtain and secure data from the vehicle. The NTSA has launched more than two dozen investigations into Tesla vehicle crashes.

Stay tuned. This one is worth watching.