North Texas Daily

You may have first heard about the Luna Younger case from either Twitter, conservative media outlets or the local street preacher who hangs around the corner of the Business Leadership Builder every Wednesday morning.

The basic summary is that there is a custody battle between peditrician Dr. Anne Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger over their 7-year-old twins, Jude and Luna. The one at the center of all the controversy, however, is Luna, who will be referred to by “them/them” pronouns.

Luna Younger was reported by their mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas and other therapists to display signs of gender dysphoria which is when a person’s gender identity does not coincide with the one they were assigned at birth. In other words, Luna is a transgender minor. Dr. Georgulas has been taking them to see a therapist, with the hope of having her gender affirmed, with the options of puberty blockers if Luna continues to experience dysphoria at the ages of ten to twelve. The child’s father, Jeffrey Younger, disputed this and has been fighting to gain custody to “protect” his children.

The frenzy began when the Younger father set up the now-defunct site, SaveJames.com, to raise funds and awareness of his situation and to raise funds for his legal battle. Prior to the site being taken down, the fundraiser had received $43,930 of it’s $75K goal. He continued to draw attention by speaking to various conservative outlets, such as LifeSite, which led to more like-minded organizations to pick up his side of the story.

Dr. Georgulas was awarded sole custody of both children via jury, a decision that was met with threats and pushback. The flames of controversy were further fanned when Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh created the hashtag,  #ProtectJamesYounger. The movement ended up receiving responses from both Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who tweeted that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services was now investigating the case.

Judge Jim Cooks then threw out the jury decision and awarded partial custody to Younger, leading to Dr. Georgulas filing for Judge Cooks’s recusal from the case. The decision is expected Dec. 9.

The amount of furor over the case is staggering, all fueled by the prospect of protecting a child from “castration” and “the political left.”

The thing is that many of these are myths perpetrated to harm trans people. If you want an excellent breakdown of these, I’ll refer to the Vox article, “What the battle over a 7-year-old trans girl could mean for families nationwide” by Katelyn Burns. She does a far better job than I ever could of breaking down the falsehoods that Cruz and Younger are spreading. Another excellent piece I’d recommend would be from our own Adrian Maldonado, who wrote on the evils of conversion therapy.

Then there’s Jeffrey Younger. According to documents from his appeal to reverse a court decision to have his marriage to Dr. Georgulas annulled, he was found to have lied to her on the accounts of his military service, employment record and marriage history, among other things. The judge also admonished Younger for taking “comfort in public controversy,” and that he had made “approximately $139,000” from the all noise he had made.

I couldn’t verify if any of this went to his legal team, or if it even counts the previously cited $44k.  Even The Blaze’s own Glenn Beck, a diehard conservative, found in court documents relating to Dr. Georgulas’s petition for sole custody that Younger had reportedly acted “aggressively” towards Dr. Georgulas’s older daughters from a prior marriage. This obviously paints an unflattering picture of him.

Jeffrey Younger has effectively destroyed his ex-wife’s reputation and his childrens’ privacy, Luna’s especially, for financial gain.

At the end of the day, Luna Younger is now in joint custody between a mother trying to get them the therapy they need, and a father who is a documented fraud and liar. It should also be noted, that there is testimony from a witness that Luna experienced discomfort about having to present as a boy around Younger.

The people supporting Jeffrey Younger do not really care about kids like Luna.

What they really care about is making children submit to their war on the LGBTQ+ community. This is not about “protecting” minors from “castration” or “sterilisation,” it’s about suppressing any queer identity they may have. If this wasn’t a threat to queer people, Jeffrey Younger wouldn’t be allowed within a hundred feet of his kids, because I don’t believe for a second that he has his kids’ best interest at heart.

It is my belief that the transgender community is still one of the kindest and loving there is.

Each and every one of it’s members deserves to be affirmed and loved, not relentlessly marginalized and denied access to basic health care. They do not deserve to be doubted, just because they do not conform to conservative norms of identity.

2020 looks to be rough for trans people, and I have can only hope that people please be kind and affirming to who any trans person.

Featured Illustration: Jae-Eun Suh