Jan. 31 (UPI) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday directed state agency heads to recognize only two genders — male and female — continuing a campaign against what Abbott called woke gender ideologies.
Abbott’s action declaring Texas recognizes only two genders is not consistent with professional medical and psychological guidance from the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association.
The AMA says in a statement on its website, “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population. Receipt of gender-affirming care has been linked to dramatically reduced rates of suicide attempts, decreased rates of depression and anxiety, decreased substance use, improved HIV medication adherence and reduced rates of harmful self-prescribed hormone use.”
But Abbott said in his letter that Texas agencies should follow a White House executive order on gender, ignoring medical and psychological guidance on gender and healthcare for transgender and gender-diverse people.
“On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, rejecting similar efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration to distort commonsense notions of biological sex,” Abbott wrote in his letter.
The American Psychology Association says in a policy statement on its website, “This policy statement affirms APA’s support for unobstructed access to healthcare and evidence-based clinical care for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary children, adolescents and adults.”
The APA added, “This policy statement addresses the spread of misleading and unfounded narratives that mischaracterize gender dysphoria and affirming care, likely resulting in further stigmatization, marginalization, and lack of access to psychological and medical supports for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary individuals.”
Abbott and the White House executive order on gender purport to somehow be defending women as they disregard medical and psychological guidance on gender.
Abbott’s press release announcing his effort to force all Texas agencies to comply with rejecting “woke gender ideologies” urged agency heads to reject what Abbot called “radical sexual orientation and gender identity ideologies.”
The Trump administration is attempting to enforce its beliefs on gender and other diversity, equity and inclusion issues through executive orders.
That includes an order issued Jan. 27 that said in part, “Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
A White House statement on Jan. 20, said, “The President will establish male and female as biological reality and protect women from radical gender ideology.”