Texas removes suicide hotline for LGTBQ+ youths because Abbott called trans advocate

[pathora44]

Just in case anyone could ever forget, for Republicans cruelty is not a bug it is a feature in everything they do in life.

A Texas state agency disabled a website that included a suicide hotline and resources for LGBT youth after Gov. Greg Abbott's primary election opponent accused the lawmaker of advocating "for transgender ideology," records obtained by the Houston Chronicle show.

Don Huffines, a businessman and former state senator, is running against Abbott for the Republican Party's gubernatorial nomination as Abbott sinks to the lowest approval ratings of his career.

In late August, Huffines published a video on Twitter attacking the governor for allowing Texas Youth Connection, a division of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services, to host a suicide prevention hotline and other resources meant to help queer kids on its website, including a section of the site titled "Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation."

"These are not Texas values, these are not Republican Party values," Huffines says in the video. "But these are obviously Greg Abbott's values."

Hours after Huffines' video began gaining traction on social media, first, the "Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation" webpage was deleted.

Shortly thereafter, the entire Texas Youth Connection website was also disabled. The website for Texas Youth Connection is an offshoot of Family and Protective Services. It aims to help kids prepare for life after foster care and included resources for housing and education, in addition to LGBT identity, according to the Chronicle.

The website has since been replaced with a message that reads, "The Texas Youth Connection website has been temporarily disabled for a comprehensive review of its content. This is being done to ensure that its information, resources, and referrals are current."
A screenshot of the current landing page for the Texas Youth Connection website.
A screenshot of the current landing page for the Texas Youth Connection website. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Nearly two months later, employee emails obtained by the Chronicle through a public records request reveal that Department of Family Protective Services employees discussed removing the "Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation" webpage on the Texas Youth Connection website as a direct response to Huffines' video, right before the page was taken offline.

According to the outlet, the agency's media relations director Marissa Gonzales emailed a link of Huffines' video to the department's communications director Patrick Crimmins 13 minutes after it was posted.

"FYI. This is starting to blow up on Twitter," Gonzales reportedly wrote.

Crimmins then reached out to the agency's web and creative services director saying, "we may need to take that page down, or somehow revise content," the Chronicle reported.

The entire Texas Youth Connection website remains "temporarily disabled" as of Tuesday.

In a statement to the Chronicle, Huffines took credit for the site's removal.

"We aren't surprised that state employees who are loyal to Greg Abbott had to scramble after we called their perverse actions out," Huffines told the newspaper. "I promised Texans I would get rid of that website and I kept that promise."

Crimmins, who serves as the department spokesman, told Insider that a content review "is still ongoing," but did not answer specific questions about why the site had been taken down.

This is not the first time Abbott and the state government have been pressured to restrict resources for the transgender community in 2021.

Miffed after the state legislature failed to pass a law restricting transgender children from accessing transition-related care, the governor pledged to find an alternative route in July.

The governor also acquiesced and added plans to create a law restricting transgender kids from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity after hounding from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

http://https://www.yahoo.com/news/te...005603852.html

So Abbott removed one of the few government run programs that actually helped LGBTQ+ children because his primary opponent Don Huffines accused Abbott of being a transgender advocate because there was a government run suicide hotline for children. In a hold my beer moment in "Monster of the year" considerations Abbott's people took down the hotline and website so as shut down Huffines accusations. It is tough to tell who is more of a monster DeSantis or Abbott because they fight hard to one up each other. Sadly much like the schlocky guilty pleasure Aliens V. Predator movie tagline "Whoever wins... We lose".

Never, EVER forget, that cruelty is not a bug but always and most definitely the feature for Republicans.

[Endus]

Never, EVER forget, that cruelty is not a bug but always and most definitely the feature for Republicans.

"Trans ideology" basically just meaning "trans people want to, like, live normal lives like everyone else". That's the horrible thing that Texas Republicans oppose.

Because they're vicious-minded sadistic bigots, for whom creating human suffering is not an accidental side effect of their policies, but the entire purpose and goal they seek to achieve.

This is evil. We need to use that word more often. Literally just evil, presented as a political ideology.

[Edge-]

I mean, we can just outright say that Republicans officials hate kids in general. Between this and banning mask mandates in schools, even in case of outbreaks, it's hard to come to another conclusion.

I'm just wondering what the hell happened that make them hate kids so much. I generally think that, you know, suicide prevention services targeting just about anyone struggling with mental health issues is a good thing but maybe I'm just weird and have like, empathy?

[Mihalik]

Winter is upon us. Gotta sacrifice and kill a couple of gay kids to distract the plebs from the fact that they are just one bad weather event away from freezing to death in their own homes.

[Gestopft]

Wooooowwwwww, fuck him with a rusty crowbar...

[Kaleredar]

This is a lot of stuff that Abbott is shoving down the pike quite quickly, between this, the mask mandate bans, the abortion bounties, and the other shenanigans happening in Texas like the "recount."

It'll be interesting to see if this is "emboldening his base" so much as "inflaming his resistance." I'm going to assume he's pissing off more people than he's swaying over to his side. The people that would be for these draconian crackpot laws would have supported him and the GOP no matter what; meanwhile younger people and the bluer metropolitan areas are likely becoming more and more aggravated at this bald overreach.

I think Abbott is... scared. Scared of being primaried by a Trump supporter, so he's trying to prove how crazy he is to show fealty to the ideology of Trump.

Unfortunately, people have to suffer for his chicken-shit lack of spine and moral fiber.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Just remember this kind of shit every time you vote republican. This is what you vote for. You can look in the mirror and tell yourself its just because you are "fiscally conservative" but you are enabling this behavior too. I hope you are proud of yourselves. Just cowardly Texans being cowardly. This is for suicide prevention. Not abortion, nothing else but mental health services.

[Kaleredar]

Just remember this kind of shit every time you vote republican. This is what you vote for. You can look in the mirror and tell yourself its just because you are "fiscally conservative" but you are enabling this behavior too. I hope you are proud of yourselves. Just cowardly Texans being cowardly. This is for suicide prevention. Not abortion, nothing else but mental health services.

Unfortunately they'll dress this up as "ceasing government handouts for coddling delusional kids who just have to get over themselves."

If TexasRules bothered to show up he'd probably say something to that effect. I doubt we'll see him; he's too busy downplaying COVID and raging about California passing some law about toy marketing.

But like I said. This is a lot of bold, polarizing actions from Abbott in a rather short period of time. Hopefully, with Texas becoming bluer and bluer, this comes back to bite him and the Texas GOP in the ass.

[Nastard]

"Trans ideology" basically just meaning "trans people want to, like, live normal lives like everyone else". That's the horrible thing that Texas Republicans oppose.

I think Texas Republicans are bitter that others don't have to live obvious lies like they do. Why should trans people get to be who they really are, when Texas Republicans have to pretend that Covid isn't a legit threat, or act like the election was fraudulent and Trump actually won? It's not fair, I tells ya!

[s_bushido]

Maybe Thanos had the right idea. -_-

and no, i'm not seriously suggesting we murder a whole bunch of people. i'll leave the causing of suffering and death up to GOP lawmakers.

[rayvio]

so these are the people who are against abortion because it's supposedly a sin and yet they're all for trans teens killing themselves despite suicide supposedly being another sin? do they even try to hide the hypocrisy any more?

[s_bushido]

do they even try to hide the hypocrisy any more?

They learned from the past 5 years that they don't have to.

[DarkTZeratul]

so these are the people who are against abortion because it's supposedly a sin and yet they're all for trans teens killing themselves despite suicide supposedly being another sin? do they even try to hide the hypocrisy any more?

I feel like there's an appropriate George Carlin quote here: "Catholics, and other Christians, are against abortion and they're against homosexuals. Well who has less abortions than homosexuals? Here is an entire class of people practically guaranteed never to have an abortion! And the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside! You'd think they'd make natural allies."

[Goliad]

Let me get this straight. If you oppose mask mandates you get banned by the liberal mods here for posting misinformation. But there can be pages of kids who don’t want to be their biological sex. So mask mandates is science, but delusional kids who want to be called by different pronouns and boys who obviously have denser bones and greater muscle mass and want to wrestle girls because they believe themselves to be girls is also science?


Infracted.

[s_bushido]

Let me get this straight. If you oppose mask mandates you get banned by the liberal mods here for posting misinformation. But there can be pages of kids who don’t want to be their biological sex. So mask mandates is science, but delusional kids who want to be called by different pronouns and boys who obviously have denser bones and greater muscle mass and want to wrestle girls because they believe themselves to be girls is also science?

shhh... No one tell the bigot that not all trans people give a shit about sports. It's a secret to everybody.


But good job demonstrating exactly why they are especially vulnerable to suicidality. It's very helpful.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Well keep in mind Ted Bundy used to work a suicide hotline.

[Dezerte]

I wonder what's it's going to take for people (primarily supporters of the GOP) to take some time for reflection and question what their party stands for. How low, how despicable does the GOP have to become for these people to start caring?

[Benggaul]

I wonder what's it's going to take for people (primarily supporters of the GOP) to take some time for reflection and question what their party stands for. How low, how despicable does the GOP have to become for these people to start caring?

As long as they're "hurting the right people" their supporters won't care in the least and will actively cheer them on.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Let me get this straight. If you oppose mask mandates you get banned by the liberal mods here for posting misinformation. But there can be pages of kids who don’t want to be their biological sex. So mask mandates is science, but delusional kids who want to be called by different pronouns and boys who obviously have denser bones and greater muscle mass and want to wrestle girls because they believe themselves to be girls is also science?

Another alt of a banned bigot. Sorry not sorry that you broke the rules and got banned. It'd be nice if we could just IP ban people doing ban evasions like this, since it is against the rules, but I doubt that kind of cleanup will ever happen.

[bladeXcrasher]

Unfortunately, Texas gaining seats will allow for further dilution of the minority and city vote so it's unlikely we get a non-GQP Gov next election cycle.