Autopsy Report: Stephanie Klick Killed Every Bill Banning Child Gender Modification in Texas 87th Session

When it comes to the gender modification ban bills that the Texas Legislature controlled by a Republican majority and with Republicans holding the top positions, one has to wonder how such a bill failed to move swiftly through both chambers and make its way to the Governor’s desk? There is plenty of blame to go around but only one person had a hand in personally killing all six (6) bills relating to gender modification procedures for minors in Texas. That is Stephanie Klick, TX House Representative from North Richland Hills, Texas House District 91.

Every single one of these bills had to go to her committee where five of them were killed without even a hearing. One bill, the weakest of bills by Rep Krause, escaped the death grip of her committee after it languished in committee for over a month before having a hearing, it took an additional two weeks to get the bill to Calendars Committee after the hearing. You can read the bill language here.

MadMommaBear is providing the following autopsy report for each bill below:

HB 68 – Authored by Rep Steve Toth, correctly characterized the gender modification of a minor through the use of hormones, puberty-blocking drugs, and surgeries as child abuse. The bill made it to the House Committee on Public Health chaired by Stephanie Klick on February 25th, 2021. The bill never received a hearing from Rep. Klick. The bill was dead on arrival. Toth, has come to Stephanie Klick’s defense stating she did not kill the gender modification bills and even throwing himself under the bus by stating that HB 1399 is the stronger bill. It wasn’t. He thinks you cannot read the bills yourself.

HB 4014 authored by Cole Hefner (of #FMA infamy) made it to Klick’s Committee on Public Health on March 29, 2021. It was never given a hearing and it died in her committee. Uncertainty surrounds how serious Rep. Hefner was about passing this bill since he was on the Calendars Committee and never motioned for the single bill that came to that committee to end child gender modification to be added to the House Calendar. He was not actively pushing this bill to anyone’s knowledge. Perhaps Hefner was too busy having extra-marital relations with freshman representative, Lacy Hull.

HB 2693 authored by Representative Steve Toth would have prohibited professional liability insurance coverage for providers that perform/provide gender modification procedures for minors. It would also have required the Texas Medical Board to discipline the provider by revoking the license of the provider. The bill was received by Klick’s Committee on Public Health on March 17, 2021, and it had no further action. It died in committee without even a hearing. This bill is stronger than HB 1399, the only bill that Klick allowed to escape her committee.

SB 1311 was also killed by Stephanie Klick. This bill originated in the Senate and after passed there it made its way to Klick’s committee on 5/24, very late in the session. Klick promised to pass it out immediately without a hearing, she did not get to do that due to a Republican member of her committee having to take leave for a death in the family. The fault still lies with Klick, however, because the identical bill by Steve Toth HB 2693 sat in her committee since March 17th without a hearing. Had she moved that bill forward before the House deadline she could have passed the House version that matched the Senate version, almost ensuring passage in the House.

HB 1399 which is a bill similar to SB 1311 (doesn’t provide any rule-making authority or create any criminal justice impact) made its way to Stephanie Klick’s House Committee on Public Health on March 5, 2021. HB 1399 died a slow death. The first blow came by Stephanie Klick slow-walking the bill until 4/14/2021 (40 days later) when it had its public hearing. With just weeks remaining to get the bill on the House calendar, the bill languished for 13 days before going to the House Calendars Committee. At the time, no explanation was given by Klick or her office what was taking so long. Klick authored a bill to increase the legal concentration of medical marijuana and that bill sailed through her committee and on to passage. The priorities of the Texas Legislature never cease to puzzle the public.

In the Calendars Committee were four members who were authors or co-authors of HB1399. One would think that if they would have been serious about passing it that they would not delay in motioning for the bill to be placed on the calendar. Rep. Slawson finally motioned for it to be placed on the calendar after two weeks, but it was not placed on the higher priority calendar and instead was placed on the general calendar assuring time would run out for it to be heard with over three hundred bills ahead of it. Dustin Burrows could have prioritized the bill on the major calendar, he did not, but no motion was made to do that. Was this a freshman mistake by Slawson or a collaborated slaughter of this bill? The bill ultimately died when Dade Phelan called for a recess for several days at the request of Rep. Jeff Leach in order to pressure the Senate to pass bipartisan priorities. Leach had said no more Senate bills should be voted on until the bills for criminal justice reform were voted out of the Senate. Speaker, Dade Phelan, slammed the gavel down and the House adjourned for more than three days.

While other RINOs definitely played a role in making sure HB 1399 was killed, it was Stephanie Klick who killed five of the six bills addressing child gender modification on her own. Klick tried to deflect blame in a recent Facebook post by stating the “bill was voted out the same day as the Heartbeat Bill”. And that is just her trying to point to her one bill wonder this session, a bill that incrementally addresses the slaughter of innocent babies in the womb. However, the point she may be trying to make is that there was time to pass the bill, they passed the Heartbeat Bill and they could have passed this bill as well. There just was not the political will to do so and hardly any Republicans (aside from Bryan Slayton and Senator Hall) were calling out their colleagues for this.

There was time, however, for Stephanie Klicks HB 1535 which expanded the use of medical marijuana in Texas. That bill entered Klick’s committee on 3/11/2021 and was heard just 17 days later. It was reported favorably and Calendars received it on 4/26/2021 and quickly placed it on the calendar on 4/28/2021. The bill was passed by the House on 4/29/2021. Interestingly, Morris Denton, who is CEO of Compassionate Cultivation is one of Klick’s top donors in 2022 so far and also donated $1500 for the 2020 election cycle to Klick. Compassionate Cultivation even named one of their growing rooms after Stephanie Klick.

Somewhere, in Manchaca, TX a room full of marijuana is growing in Stephanie Klick’s honor.

Stephanie Klick also received a donation of $2000 from Friends of UT Southwestern PAC. This PAC was associated with the hospital that opened the first Pediatric Gender Clinic in Texas. The Genecis Clinic has been closed this year as detailed here and here after activists and citizens protested the clinic and the board members and the clinic and hospital had many news stories discussing its practices as well as its link to top Texas RINOs through political donations from the PAC. The child abuse continues though through various departments. A law is needed to ban child gender modification procedures in Texas. Do not expect to get that done with Stephanie Klick in office as she is likely to be the gatekeeper of these bills when they are introduced next session.

Klick also received money from Abbvie PAC which is linked to the pharmaceutical company that makes puberty blockers for children. She received a donation of $500 from them after being re-elected. Is this quid pro quo? We don’t know but Stephanie Klick has got to go.

Good News! She does have a primary challenger who is block walking his buns off to replace Stephanie Klick and he is very serious about protecting Texas Children. Here is the website for David Lowe where you can learn more about his campaign to save Texas children and maybe make a small contribution to his campaign so Texas can fire Stephanie Klick for failing to protect Texas Children.

David Lowe wasn’t very impressed with Klick’s donations from Friends of UT Southwestern either, he took out this ad to promote his campaign. Texas can do better than Stephanie Klick and Texas children deserve better than this serial bill killer.

To support Stephanie Klick’s opponent in the Republican Primary of Texas go here, even the smallest of donations helps. We need to get her out of the TX House and off the Public Health Committee.

Stephanie Klick killed the bills that would have banned child gender modification in Texas and now Texas RINOs are circling the wagons to defend this serial bill killer. They need to be removed from office as well. In honesty, all the Republicans should have been sent home after failing to end these abhorrent practices, but defending the person killing these bills is doubling down and they should all be fired by the citizens of Texas.