Texas Senate Passes Bills Banning Child Gender Modification and Drag Shows for Kids

Conservative Texans showed up to protest against a drag-queen event held at a Katy, Texas, church on Sept. 24, 2022. Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times

The Republican-controlled Texas Senate passed key bills to ban medical gender modification for children and outlaw drag queen performances in front of minors, including Drag Queen Story Hour.

SB 12 and SB 14 were part of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priorities for the 88th Legislative session. Patrick holds one of the most powerful positions in Texas as head of the Senate.

The bills passed on April 4 will now head to the House, where they will go to a committee.

The legislation is part of a nationwide push by conservatives to give power back to parents and protect children from sexualization.

Protesters at a Matt Walsh's "Rally to End Child Mutilation” hold a sign for transgender rights Oct. 21, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

Those on the left say allowing children to switch genders helps them mentally and drag performances are art that is protected by the First Amendment.

SB 14, sponsored by Sen. Donna Campbell (R), who is a medical doctor, would end gender modification in Texas. It passed the Senate after a contentious amendment was stripped.

The amendment would have grandfathered non-surgical gender modification for children who started treatment 90 days before the bill would become law.

SB 14 prohibits health care providers from performing sex change surgeries or prescribing puberty blockers to minors unless medically necessary.

Doctors would lose their medical licenses should they break the law under the bill.

Additionally, SB 14 prohibits public money from being used or distributed to providers, medical schools, hospitals, or physicians who provide these surgeries or drugs.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks after Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the reopening of more Texas businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic at a press conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin on Monday, May 18, 2020. Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool/Getty Images

SB 12, which would ban drag shows in front of children, was sponsored by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R) and his companion bill SB 1601 would halt Drag Queen Story Hours by defunding municipal libraries that host them.

SB 12 would ban male performers exhibiting as a female, or female performers exhibiting as a male who use “clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise, performs before an audience,” appealing to prurient sexual interests.

It would make sexually oriented performances on public property, a business, or in front of children illegal. Breaking the law could result in a Class A misdemeanor with a fine of up to $10,000.

Conservatives applauded all three bills.

Patrick put out statements applauding the Senate’s passage of his legislative priorities.

“As Lt. Governor, I believe the practice of child gender modification is abhorrent and must be stopped in Texas,” Patrick wrote.

Patrick attributed the drag queen legislation as a way to stop radical left-wing attempts to sexualize children.

“Children, who cannot make decisions on their own, must be protected from these sexually-oriented drag shows now occurring more and more in front of them,” he wrote.

Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes proposed bills banning drag shows for children. Courtesy of Texas Senate

The Texas GOP lauded SB 14 in a statement calling it one of the “strongest bills in the country banning the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of children.”

GOP Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi said the legislation would stop “misguided” adults who have sacrificed children “at the altar of political ideology.”

However, the Republican-controlled Texas legislature failed to pass a law banning gender modification for minors during the 2021 legislative session.

Patrick pointed to 2021 when the Texas Senate passed two bills banning child gender modification last session in 2021, but none passed the Texas House.

Some Republican lawmakers have questioned why a transgender modification bill in the Texas House didn’t pass the last session and was allowed to die.

Both bills received pushback from pro-trans protesters, medical associations, and Democrats.

Transgender supporters gathered on March 3 outside the Austin capitol to oppose the bill.

Sen. Jose Menedez (D) spoke against it, saying it hurt children who believe they are a different gender than at birth.

“I worry about the harm,” Menedez said. “The Trevor Project reported that after our never-ending sessions of 2021 that more than two-thirds of LGBT youth said that recent efforts by states to limit the rights of transgender and nonbinary people had negatively impacted their health.”

Drag queens went to the state capital to protest during the “Youth Capital Takeover.” Drag queen Nadine Hughes used the protest as an opportunity to perform in the Capitol Rotunda.

Some Democrats argued that not all drag queen shows were inherently sexual and were part of free speech.

Democratic Senators questioned the bill asking if it wasn’t already against the law or if it banned any cross-dressing.

The Republican bill’s sponsor, Hughes, clarified that no law bans sexualized drag shows performed for children, which is why the bill is needed.

He added that movies such as “Mrs. Doubtfire” wouldn’t be outlawed because the movie wasn’t of prurient interest.