Father in Texas custody case over trans child appears on OAN, apparently violating court-issued gag order
Jeff Younger: “It's illegal for me to talk to you right now. I'm under a court gag order.”
Written by Alex Paterson
Published
In an apparent violation of a court-issued gag order, a father in a high-profile Texas child custody dispute spread anti-trans rhetoric about his trans child’s “abnormal gender expression” on the right-wing conspiracy theory channel One America News.
Jeff Younger has been part of a custody battle in Texas that was widely publicized by right-wing media and subsequently used as an anti-trans cudgel by prominent conservative leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Donald Trump Jr.
The custody battle is between Younger and his ex-wife, who disagree about affirming their child’s gender identity. The Daily Beast reported in 2019 that three mental health professionals had diagnosed their child with gender dysphoria and the mother has accepted her as trans. According to court documents from July 2018, Younger “has engaged in increasingly aggressive behavior, including physical force, toward” his former wife and “emotionally abusive behavior toward the child.” Younger’s supporters have also launched an online campaign, fundraiser, and petition, all using the name Younger’s child formerly used (commonly referred to as a deadname).
In October 2019, District Judge Kim Cooks reportedly issued a joint custody ruling that “didn’t require Younger to affirm the child’s identity, and instead ordered the family to undergo therapy and placed a gag order on both parents.”
During the June 2 edition of OAN’s In Focus with Stephanie Hamill, Younger discussed his child’s gender identity at length, then noted, “It's illegal for me to talk to you right now. I'm under a court gag order.” He continued, “I’m not allowed to speak about transgender issues, LGBT issues, whether my son is a boy or girl. … But what I have decided is that in order to protect my son, I'm not following unconstitutional laws or mandates from any government body ever again.”
Citation From the June 2, 2021, edition of OAN's In Focus with Stephanie Hamill
JEFF YOUNGER: Here is how the progression went. She started -- this is when I was still living in the house -- she started telling him, putting him into time out saying the monsters only eat boys. Don't be a boy. And I started noticing this weird stuff and obviously conflicts began to arise. She used the psychology community -- she's a pediatrician in Coppell, Texas. And she knew how to manipulate the opinions of licensed care providers. And she pushed me out of the house, and within a few months of that, my son was just past his third birthday, she began reading him transgender books and teaching him that he had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body and that he wasn't a normal boy. And he came to me and told me this. There is a YouTube video, if you just search for “Mommy says I’m a girl.” It went viral, there is millions of views on it. That is literally me finding out for the first time what she was doing to my son. She then took him to a psychologist -- and this is the shocking part that I think your audience needs to know -- after one appointment, a pediatrician and a psychologist diagnosed James as having gender dysphoria and referred him to a medical clinic for quote -- and this is in the medical records -- quote, “the medical side of treatment,” unquote. What is that? That means putting him on puberty blockers which does irreversible harm to the skeleton. It means putting him on cross-sex hormones which permanently sterilizes him and they do that as early as 10 years old. In fact, in the medical records, they say they wanted to do it to my son at eight years old. And then at 15 years old, they castrate boys in this state. And that is the road they put him on. After one appointment.
...
YOUNGER: It's illegal for me to talk to you right now. I'm under a court gag order which says --
STEPHANIE HAMILL (HOST): Oh, are you?
YOUNGER: Oh yeah, I’m not allowed to speak about transgender issues, LGBT issues, whether my son is a boy or girl. None of this stuff. It bars me from talking about all these political issues. But what I have decided is that in order to protect my son, I'm not following unconstitutional laws or mandates from any government body ever again. This is how we got into this mess. Parents are cowed and afraid to talk about these things because of school repercussions and repercussions in court. And so on July 2, I'm going to a contempt -- a criminal contempt hearing because I'm talking to organizations like yours and speaking out. They're asking to jail me for a year, give me 10 years probation and a $50,000 fine just for telling other people what's happening in these courts.
Notably, Younger has apparently violated his gag order several other times this year. He has discussed his child’s gender identity at a Texas Senate committee hearing, in a campaign video for Texas gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines, with the Flower Mound Area Republicans, on the Courage to Stand podcast, with National File TV, and on the Dad Talk Today podcast.