Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, Meta, and Paypal, are among the 60 companies identified by a local report to have signed a newspaper advertisement calling on Texas to back down on its policy against transgender surgeries.
Axios reported that the full-page advertisement, which condemned the Texas policy as discriminatory, was printed last Friday in the Dallas Morning News. The ad raised the Texas' policy is contradictory to the values upheld by the signatory companies, who called an end to its implementation.
"The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies," the ad said.
"We call on public leaders--in Texas and across the country--to abandon efforts to write discrimination into law and policy," it added, "It's not just wrong, it has an impact on our employees, our customers, their families, and our work."
The ad stressed that the signatory companies created jobs and served customers in Texas while ensuring for years their support for LGBTQ+ people. The ad also highlighted that their companies provided members of the LGBTQ+, which included their employees and their families, a safe environment in the communities they served.
Christianity Daily reported in February that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared puberty blockers and sex-change procedures as "child abuse" under the state's Family Code Chapter 261 provisions. Paxton officially made the announcement in his Opinion No. KP-0401 that concluded such transgender transitioning procedures as a violation of state laws.
"Sex-change operations and puberty blockers prescribed to kids is 'child abuse' under Texas law. These procedures are monstrous and tragic. I'll do everything I can to protect against those who take advantage of and harm young Texans," Paxton said.
Paxton's opinion came in response to the questions raised by Texas House Committee on General Investigations Chair Matt Krause on whether such procedures could be considered child abuse. The Opinion highlighted that the procedures conducted on children, which involved mutilation of the genitalia during surgery, are regarded as child abuse by the law.
In line with the Opinion, Texas Governor Greg Abbott instructed an investigation on parents who allow their children to undergo gender transition. While President Joe Biden immediately reacted to the matter and issued a warning against Texas for its fight against the LGBTQ agenda.
The Human Rights Campaign, which claims to be the nation's largest LGBTQ+ organization, accordingly helped organize the full-page ad. The organization said on its website that the policy created fear in Texas families because state leaders forced parents to choose between their lives or obedience to the state at allegedly the expense of their children.
Human Rights Campaign Interim President Joni Madison called Abbott an extremist and accountable for attacking trans kids across the United States. Madison stressed that parents, the public, the medical community, and business leaders are against the Texas policy.
As per the Human Rights Campaign press release last Friday, the other Big Tech companies opposing Paxton and Abbott are Akamai Technologies, Cisco, Electronic Arts, Gearbox, IBM, LinkedIn, Patreon, Shutterstock, Yahoo, and Yelp. The other companies in the ad belong to the health, food, lifestyle, and property sectors, like Johnson & Johnson, Macy's, and Trillium Asset Management, LLC.
