Advocate groups supporting transgender children and some doctors are voicing their concerns after Governor Greg Abbott asked state officials to investigate instances of sex-change surgeries in kids.

"Trans youth have always existed," Gabriel Sanchez of the South Texas Equality Project said. "Trans youth will always exist."

Sanchez supports young trans and non-binary kids in the Rio Grande Valley and says the recent opinions from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Governor Abbott are not sitting well with him.

"I think what is disappointing is that certain political factions in the state of Texas are trying to weaponize the existence of trans children to fire up their base," he said.

In a letter to the Texas Department of Family Services, Abbott asked the agency to conduct a prompt investigation of any reported instances of abusive procedures in the state related to sex change procedures, referring to it as child abuse.

On Friday, Paxton wrote a 13-page lengthy opinion echoing the governor's stance.

DHR Endocrinologist Dr. Michelle Cordoba-Kissee says the governor is creating fear instead of solutions.

"I do want to clarify that no physician, no provider would ever give children gender-affirming hormones," Cordova-Kissee said. "Children know very early on, age three or four, they have a gender identity. They know who they are inside."

Citing medical guidelines, Cordova-Kissee says children would have to begin entering puberty around 12 years old to receive puberty blockers, not hormones.

Experts say hormone therapies can begin when a child is 16, after getting consent from parents and undergoing an exhaustive medical evaluation.

"Governor Abbott is, unfortunately, falling into what a trend we've seen nationwide in the United States," Sanchez said. "Conservative politicians making an issue out of something that isn't an issue."

Though the views expressed by Paxton and Abbott were simply opinions and not legal decisions, Cordoba-Kissee says parents should be supportive of their transgender or non-binary child.