My name is Morgan Davis. I’m from Austin, Texas. 

A year ago, I was an investigator with Child Protective Services. At the time, Governor Abbott, the governor of Texas, asked us to look into parents providing gender-affirming care to their children. On a Wednesday night, I received a phone call from my supervisor. It was within 24 hours of receiving a letter from Governor Abbott. 

She said, “We have a case and it’s yours. You’re up, but you can recuse yourself if you want to.” I said I wanted it. And then I was told it was a colleague. 

At that point I had only been transitioned about a year, and my boss knew that. I guess in hindsight, I really hope that maybe it wasn’t just happenstance, that they were showing my colleague grace in allowing a trans man to come in.

What I saw was impeccable. I went into the home. This was the easiest case I’d ever had, genuinely. It was a slam dunk. The child was thriving. I saw a family providing their child with medically necessary care.

What I saw was impeccable. The child was thriving. I saw a family providing their child with medically necessary care.

So I immediately went outside to staff the case with my supervisor. I’m on the phone with my supervisor, “Impeccable, let’s close it.” 

“No, unfortunately we can’t close it.” 

“Why are we keeping it open?” 

“They want to discuss it further.” 

“What are we discussing? This child is thriving. I mean, thriving.”

Lambda Legal had provided them with attorneys even before I arrived on site. I walked back in the house and talked to the mom’s attorney, and I think she knew. I genuinely look back now, and we’ve spoken to each other since then, and she said she knew it was something else. She could see what was coming, she’d been doing this for a long time. I was walking out with her and it just hits like a … 

And she told me when I was leaving, she said, “You shouldn’t be here,” because it didn’t matter if I was trans and it didn’t matter if I was kind, I couldn’t make it stop. The case was going to go forward.

I said, “Well, why? Why?” And at that point I just thought, Please, God, sue, please somebody sue.” And they did. 

And so the hearing was broadcast live of the family when they decided to come forward. And I received a text from my supervisor, said, “Have you been subpoenaed to testify?” 

And I asked, I said, “Do you mind me asking why?” 

And he said, “Are you watching?” 

I said, “I’m watching.” 

He said, “Look up.” And a supervisor was walking toward. She had resigned that morning and come forward. And I wish you could have been in the room. I mean, literally the room just lit up because we had a shot at this.

I received an email asking, “Do you want to sign on to the amicus brief?” And even said – they were awful nice – they said it can be anonymous. A lot of the people did it anonymously because they want to save their careers, their jobs. It didn’t feel right. I said, the only thing I had… it felt like if I signed it with my name, my real name, and said, “My name is Morgan Davis and I’m an openly trans  man, and I’m an investigator, and this family is telling the truth.” – it felt like the right thing to do. 

By signing the amicus brief, I had basically turned in my resignation letter. I’d not only come out publicly as a trans individual, I had… at that point, we were told the single thing that we could do was to come forward.

I hung on for about a month, and at that point, our entire unit had resigned. 

Had a bit of a hard time finding a job. Ironically, I currently work for the Travis County District Attorney’s Office for the Special Victims Unit, which is the attorney for CPS, and so it’s an interesting wrap up. 

You know, amazingly, I was asked as an investigator to investigate these families for gender-affirming care, whereas ironically, working for the District Attorney’s office of Travis County, I’m asked to protect these families. 

How do we keep these children safe? How moving forward do we make sure that they are taken care of? 

It’s letting a child be a child as they want to be a child. It was described to me as this, it said, “I need to get you from point A to point B. I might not know what that looks like, but I know as an adult, I’m going to get you there because point B is where you’re thriving.”