The Youth Connection webpage on the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services website has been down for weeks. The page offered information on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth in Texas. It also talked about gender identity and expression.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines took to Twitter at the end of August and called for the page to be removed. He said the state was "promoting transgender sexual policies to Texas youth." And he said "These are not Texas values, these are not Republican party values but these are obviously Greg Abbott's values."
Reports from the Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle indicate that hours after the video went up, DFPS employees emailed each other about removing or changing the page.
The page now 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."
After the page was taken down, Huffines said in a statement "We aren't surprised that state employees who are loyal to Greg Abbott had to scramble after we called their perverse actions out. I promised Texans I would get rid of that website, and I kept that promise."
The state's 13 Democratic senators wrote Governor Abbott, Lt. Governor Patrick, Speaker Phelan and DFPS Commissioner Jamie Masters, urging them to put the page back up.
None of this sits well with Alison Mohr Boleware, the Government Relations Director with the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. She says LGBT youth are more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to consider and commit suicide. Mental health resources and other help sites were linked to that page. "When kids are in crisis, they want to be able to use the suicide prevention hotline. They want to be able to find resources on their own, and having it on a webpage that is free and easily accessible is a life saving tool for youth."
She says it must be awful for these youth to continue to hear that "your identity isn't important and it isn't respected. And that you don't even get the respect of having your information on a webpage. I think that's extremely harmful. We know that LGBTQ youth can thrive when they're in accepting and inclusive environments and that's what I want for all Texas youth. I think we should be doing more to support these youth and not taking away information and taking away resources."
She adds LGBT youth are also over-represented in the Texas foster care system.
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