The new Miss USA doesn't believe the government should have any say in gender-affirming care for trans youth

• The new Miss USA R'Bonney Gabriel is speaking out about laws in her home state of Texas.
• Parents in the state who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children can be investigated.

She's only been Miss USA for a few days, but R'Bonney Gabriel was happy to chat politics with Insider as her reign began.

And Gabriel, who represented Texas during the pageant on Monday, touched on issues that have been specifically affecting her home state.

In February, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an authorization instructing the state's Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate and prosecute parents of transgender youth if they give their child gender-affirming care. The move came after Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a formal opinion stating that providing gender-affirming medical treatments like puberty blockers and gender-reassignment surgery to youth is "child abuse" under state law.

Gabriel told Insider she believes that, when it comes to young people, gender-affirming care shouldn't be decided by the government.

"I think that really starts in the home with the parents," Gabriel said. "I don't think the government should necessarily be involved in that as much as the parents making those decisions for their child."

"Trans hate is never appropriate in any time, in any place," she added. "I really think we just need to have conversations. That is really just the core of the issue — discriminating against somebody because they're different from us."

In May, the Texas Supreme Court found that Abbott didn't have the authority to order investigations into parents of transgender youth — but it also reversed an injunction that barred the state from conducting these probes in the first place.

And Republicans across the US are trying to follow Abbott's lead. Just this week, GOP lawmakers ruled that the Oklahoma Children's Hospital would only receive its federal pandemic relief funds if it ended gender-affirming care, and 60 House Republicans in Tennessee signed a letter demanding that Vanderbilt University Medical Center stop providing gender-affirming surgical procedures to transgender youth.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Children's Hospital Association called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate threats against children's hospitals and physicians that provide gender-affirming health care.

The associations said children's hospitals across that country have had to substantially increase security, and some providers now need protection around the clock.

Gabriel also spoke out against Texas' law on abortion, which is banned in all cases except to save the life of the mother. Gabriel told Insider that "as a woman, and as a Texan, it was extremely disappointing" to see the new ban go into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

"At the end of the day, I would want a woman to be able to have that decision," Gabriel said. "Because in Texas I know that, even if it's rape or incest, abortion is still illegal — and I disagree with that."