AUSTIN — Texas Republicans may have found their next socially conservative rallying cry — one that hearkens back to the hotly contested 2017 “bathroom bill” — in a widely publicized custody case centering on the gender identity of a 7-year-old in Dallas.

The gut-wrenching personal dispute between two divorced Coppell parents, who disagree on whether their child should transition from male to female, became a GOP rallying point after Gov. Greg Abbott and various lawmakers promised to intervene Wednesday.

Abbott tweeted that the state attorney general’s office and Department of Family Protective Services were looking into the case. Several conservative lawmakers have pledged to outlaw allowing Texas minors to transition genders through medical means.

By Thursday morning, Donald Trump Jr. had shared a video of the child using a hashtag calling to “protect” the kid, which many Republicans used online while arguing the child is too young to decide whether they are transgender. The Dallas Morning News is not naming the 7-year-old to protect the child’s privacy.

LGBT groups say the political rhetoric surrounding the custody case brought back memories of Texas Republicans’ push for the so-called bathroom bill in 2017. The legislation which would have restricted which restrooms, changing rooms and other intimate spaces transgender Texans could use. The bill failed after outcries from businesses and LGBTQ groups.

“It’s absolute hypocrisy. Those who claimed that they cared about privacy are now turning and violating this child’s privacy,” said Angela Hale, chief executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. “I think it’s politics exploiting the most vulnerable people to incite fear for political gain among people who don’t understand what it is like to be a transgender child.”

Now, this custody case gives the Texas GOP another chance to target transgender rights.

The case began gaining attention in some conservative news outlets over the last year after the child’s father, Jeff Younger, blogged that he feared the child would be “chemically castrated” by his ex-wife.

The child’s mother, however, has proposed allowing the child to transition socially from male to female by wearing girl’s clothing and going by a different name. Later, the child might take medical steps like puberty blockers, which temporarily pause puberty.

This step is reversible and often diagnosed for children who may feel uncomfortable with their sex and requires children’s informed consent, according to the Mayo Clinic. A teenager, typically around the age of 16, might eventually decide to pursue hormone therapy and undergo surgery when they turn 18, the clinic said.

Hale said children whose gender identity is not reaffirmed face “astronomically” higher rates of suicide. The federal Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that transgender youths face a “disproportionately higher risk” of suicide, substance abuse and violence.

In a Thursday ruling for joint custody of the child, Dallas Judge Kim Cooks 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.

She noted there was never an order for the child to undergo treatment. The mother, pediatrician Anne Georgulas, brought the lawsuit seeking to modify the joint custody of the child, who she said began identifying and presenting as a girl, if Younger didn’t affirm the child’s gender identity by allowing the child to dress and express their gender in this way. Georgulas asked consent from both parents to eventually consider if the child could medically transition.

GOP pushback

The judge’s decision hasn’t stopped Republicans from pushing back. The protective-services department is reviewing the allegations at the urging of the Office of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a move that several powerful conservative groups that championed the bathroom bill are applauding.

Political scientists said Republicans are using the Dallas custody case to energize their most staunchly conservative backers ahead of elections and signal a return to social issues in the 2021 session.

“There’s trigger issues for so many right-leaning Republicans. It plays well politically for their them in a presidential year,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston professor.

LGBTQ opposition generally has hurt Republicans over the last few years. But the issue of transgender children is complex and divisive enough for the Texas GOP to potentially gain steam from it, added Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor.

“Outright homophobia or anything that seems discriminatory towards members of the LGBT community at least, I think increasingly works against Republicans,” he said. “But this issue of transgender children and the current role of parents, that is one where I think the majority of Texans probably agree with the GOP position more than with the Democratic position.”

Six out of 10 Texans said they’ve become more supportive of transgender rights over the last five years, according to a 2019 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. The poll did not take Texans’ temperatures on trans kids, but Hale believes they will “have the majority support.”

How Republicans frame the issue will be key, Jones added.

“If it’s presented in a very narrow way by Republicans that is focusing on the child and the father, it’s likely to be better received by voters,” he said. “On the other hand, if it’s seen as just a homophobic attack, and having, you know, essentially, Republicans exploiting the issue for political gain, then it could then it could backfire on them.”

That would be particularly devastating for Republicans in suburban districts Democrats are hoping to flip, such as those of Reps. Angie Chen Button of Richardson and Morgan Meyer of Dallas, Jones said.

“Republicans are perceived to be exclusively focused on social issues and swing voters and suburbs want them focused on more core bread and butter economic issues,” Rottinghaus said. “And so there’s this real disconnect, potentially if they push this kind of legislation.”

Timing

The timing of the conservative movement is “interesting on the heels of the Bonnen and Sullivan case,” which ultimately led House Speaker Dennis Bonnen to not seek reelection, and is likely to permeate the election of the next House Speaker, Rottinghaus added.

“Especially in the interim where you have a lame-duck speaker, the polarization may cause issues,” he said. “It’s probably going to affect the next speaker.”

At the statewide level, the effort could benefit Paxton, a staunch conservative, and Abbott, who has strong approval ratings. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the loudest supporter of the 2017 bathroom bill, has not yet commented on the issue. How he tackles the transgender child’s custody case, Jones said, will signal whether Patrick intends to lean hard to the right or soften his fire-and-brimstone rhetoric to attract more moderate Republicans.

“It is telling that Lt. Gov. Patrick isn’t on the frontlines,” Jones said. “He needs to at least demonstrate to voters that he isn’t as extreme as Democrats might portray him.”

In 2017, many saw the pushback from businesses as the reason for the death of the bathroom bill, but with a more narrow issue, businesses may be less likely to get involved, Jones added.

“I think that businesses are going to try to avoid it because the bathroom bill had a very concrete negative impact on members of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “(Transgender children) is less of a conflict for corporations unless it starts to be seen as a nuanced attack. If it starts condemning and denigrating transgender people, then it starts to be more trouble for them.”