R’Bonney Gabriel, who has just been Miss USA for a few days, was delighted to discuss politics with Insider as her reign got underway.
Gabriel also discussed topics that have been particularly hurting her home state of Texas while serving as the representative for Texas at the contest on Monday.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, authorized the Department of Family and Protective Services to look into and punish parents of transgender children who provide their children with gender-affirming treatment in February.
The action was taken in response to Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s written declaration declaring that giving minors gender-affirming medical therapies including puberty inhibitors and gender reassignment surgery violates state law as “child abuse.”
According to Gabriel, the government shouldn’t determine what gender-affirming treatment is provided to young people.
Gabriel said, “I believe it truly begins in the house with the parents.” I believe that parents should be the ones making such choices for their children and not necessarily the government.
She said, “Transphobia is never acceptable at any time or location. “I really believe that all of us need to do is talk. Discriminating against someone because they are different from us is actually the only problem at hand.”
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in May that Abbott lacked the jurisdiction to compel inquiries into the parents of transgender children, but it also overturned a preliminary injunction that had prohibited the state from initiating such inquiries in the first place.
Republicans in the US are also attempting to emulate Abbott’s success. Recently, Republican lawmakers ruled that the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital could only receive federal pandemic relief funds if it stopped providing care to transgender children that is gender affirming. Additionally, 60 House Republicans in Tennessee signed a letter requesting that Vanderbilt University Medical Center stop performing surgeries on transgender children that are gender affirming.
On Tuesday, the American Medical Association, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into threats made against children’s hospitals and medical professionals who offer gender-affirming treatment.
The groups said that children’s hospitals all around the nation had to significantly strengthen security, and some providers now need 24-hour protection.
Gabriel also came out against Texas’ abortion legislation, which forbids the procedure unless it is necessary to save the mother’s life.
After the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June, Gabriel told Insider that “as a woman, and as a Texan, it was really distressing” to see the new prohibition take effect.
Ultimately, Gabriel remarked, “I would want a woman to be allowed to make that option.” Because I am aware that abortion is still illegal in Texas, even in cases of rape or incest, and I disagree with this.