Galactically corrupt dickweed Ken Paxton – current Texas Attorney General, future subject of multiple episodes of “Dateline” – really hates transgender kids. We know this because he has been proudly trying to make their lives miserable since he first ascended to the office in 2015. It is unclear how Paxton has the time, given all the criminality and banging women who aren’t his wife that otherwise fills his schedule, but he’s a very committed dickweed.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have Washington state and its governor, Smilin’ Jay Inslee, which earlier this year passed a shield law that would protect trans kids and their parents who bring them to Washington for gender-affirming care from the nosiness of the sort of asshole government officials in other states who would prosecute them for the crime of wanting to live their lives. Government officials such as, to pull a name out of our ass at random, Ken Paxton.
Well, who is Paxton to respect the laws of other states? Which is why the Seattle Children’s Hospital is now suing him in a Travis County court in Texas after the kids’ genitalia enthusiast demanded the hospital provide his office with any documents related to gender-affirming care it might have provided to children from Texas.
From KXAN Austin:
The first demand, which has an issue date of Nov. 17, told the hospital that the OAG was investigating “misrepresentations regarding Gender Transitioning and Reassignment Treatments and Procedures and Texas law” that allegedly violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act.
That demand gave the hospital until Dec. 7 to produce documents to the OAG for the agency to identify the following:
Then there was a list of stuff that is none of Ken Paxton’s fucking business, such as “All medications provided by the hospital to Texas children” and “Diagnosis for every medication provided by the hospital to Texas children.”
Paxton also made a second demand, which was a deadline for the hospital to answer, under oath, questions related to that list.
Oh, and for good measure, the Texas AG told Seattle Children’s that failure to comply might result in misdemeanor criminal charges leading to $5,000 fines or a year in jail.
We very badly wanted Seattle Children’s Hospital to respond by just sending Paxton this gif:
But the hospital, being a professional organization further hamstrung by probably humorless lawyers, was slightly more adult about it:
“The Demands should also be set aside because they are not bona fide investigation into
violations of the DTPA and therefore are not proper exercise of the Attorney General’s authority,” […]“Seattle Children’s is not (and cannot be) in violation of SB 14. The Demands are, therefore, an improper and ultra vires attempt to enforce SB 14 beyond the scope of the statute and beyond the authority of the Attorney General,” the lawsuit states. “The Attorney General, through the Demands for documents and information…is improperly attempting to investigate healthcare that did not occur in Texas.”
The hospital also accused Paxton of violating the Commerce Clause’s prohibition on states enforcing “protectionist” laws in a national marketplace. They might also have pointed out that the Commerce Clause protects bodily autonomy, except the Supreme Court said last year that’s not necessarily the case, ha ha, sucks to be you, anyone who has or might wish to have or not have a vagina at some point in the future.
Paxton has been at loggerheads with other Texas officials over caring for transgender people before. Once during his jihad, several local district attorneys felt it necessary to band together to assure their constituents that they would not participate by bringing charges against anyone who sought care for their transgender child. And someone in his office once demanded the Texas Department of Public Safety turn over a list of state residents who had changed their gender on their driver’s license at some point. (DPS declined on the grounds that such data doesn’t exist, presumably because no one in the history of Texas has ever been as creepy a perv as Ken Paxton.)
It’s too bad the Texas state Senate didn’t have the nutsack to kick Paxton out of office when it had the chance. His level of shittiness, even among Texas conservatives, must be hard to replace.
If I were the Goverrnor of Washington, I would hold a presser and be full, "Fuck you, Emperor of Texas Paxton. Go fuck yourself. Hard. You're not getting shit."
"You're not getting shit. But, if you think you can, come and get it. Send the Texas National Guard to OUR southern border and find the fuck out."
But that's why I'd never be elected to anything.
And once again, I’m ashamed to live in Texas (even though I didn’t vote for any of these GQP chucklefucks).
But for those of you who DON’T live here, please don’t be so blithe about telling people here to leave. There are a lot of people who can’t, for various reasons.
The better option would be for an influx of liberals who VOTE BLUE. Once the GQP loses Texas, they’re gone for good.