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I posted the article Anton found where the trans CPS investigator basically had to leave a job he loved because he was told to put families through hell for the sin of caring for their trans kids. There were a couple of comments along the lines of "Typical Texas" but goddammit, it's NOT. So another post was in order, which follows.
I've seen comments about the CPS trans thing as being 'typically Texas' and it's true in some ways, but here's why this is going down so much harder now. I'd been working at Texas social service agencies for decades; them being underfunded and besieged by budget-slashing bureaucrats who would rather save a buck than feed a child (or whatnot) is a tale as old as time. The agencies, who jokingly say "thank god for [Louisiana/Mississippi/whichever state spends less on social services; TX is often in the bottom 10% but there's usually one or two states that have it worse]" have always held their own and did whatever they could to reduce suffering with whatever budget they can manage to beg from the legislature.
That's what makes this so upsetting to me- the Department of Family and Protective Services, which is what Child Protective Services runs under, is complicit in this idiotic political stunt. Abbott's directive wasn't law, and the rules of the agency weren't changed- from what I can tell, he made a suggestion. The agency could have defied or just plain ignored it, but someone up at the top, or several someones, made the decision to go directly against the stated mission of the agency, the whole reason it exists, to protect the unprotected. It's on all their letterheads and everything.
That's what's so surprising to me about this. DFPS is supposed to protect the unprotected; how that's done is always going to be a matter of debate and meetings and endless procedural adjustments and whatnot, because bureaucratic public agencies are like that. But not this. Protective is in the name of the agency, and this is the opposite of protection. I worked there for over twenty years and I feel personally betrayed by this. And I am not alone.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Texas-CPS-workers-say-investigations-of-17410968.php?
Quote from current and former employees in a statement to an appeals court looking into the legality of this bullshit: "“Professionals at DFPS did not enter the child protection profession to remove children from loving homes with parents or guardians merely because they follow medical advice and a doctor’s care, only to place them in a foster care system that is riddled with actual abuse, sexual assault, and even sex trafficking,” the 16 employees wrote."
I've seen comments about the CPS trans thing as being 'typically Texas' and it's true in some ways, but here's why this is going down so much harder now. I'd been working at Texas social service agencies for decades; them being underfunded and besieged by budget-slashing bureaucrats who would rather save a buck than feed a child (or whatnot) is a tale as old as time. The agencies, who jokingly say "thank god for [Louisiana/Mississippi/whichever state spends less on social services; TX is often in the bottom 10% but there's usually one or two states that have it worse]" have always held their own and did whatever they could to reduce suffering with whatever budget they can manage to beg from the legislature.
That's what makes this so upsetting to me- the Department of Family and Protective Services, which is what Child Protective Services runs under, is complicit in this idiotic political stunt. Abbott's directive wasn't law, and the rules of the agency weren't changed- from what I can tell, he made a suggestion. The agency could have defied or just plain ignored it, but someone up at the top, or several someones, made the decision to go directly against the stated mission of the agency, the whole reason it exists, to protect the unprotected. It's on all their letterheads and everything.
That's what's so surprising to me about this. DFPS is supposed to protect the unprotected; how that's done is always going to be a matter of debate and meetings and endless procedural adjustments and whatnot, because bureaucratic public agencies are like that. But not this. Protective is in the name of the agency, and this is the opposite of protection. I worked there for over twenty years and I feel personally betrayed by this. And I am not alone.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Texas-CPS-workers-say-investigations-of-17410968.php?
Quote from current and former employees in a statement to an appeals court looking into the legality of this bullshit: "“Professionals at DFPS did not enter the child protection profession to remove children from loving homes with parents or guardians merely because they follow medical advice and a doctor’s care, only to place them in a foster care system that is riddled with actual abuse, sexual assault, and even sex trafficking,” the 16 employees wrote."
