Fighting back against efforts to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors
LATEST: The Texas Supreme Court has allowed Senate Bill 14 to go into effect while the court case against it continues. See the statement from the legal advocacy organizations about the oral argument held in January 2024 and check the case page for updates.
On July 12, 2023, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Texas, ACLU National, the Transgender Law Center, and the law firms Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP sued the State of Texas and state officials to preserve access to evidence-based, life-saving health care following the Texas Legislature’s passage of Senate Bill 14.
This law bans necessary and evidence-based medical care for Texas’s transgender youth, cuts off access to care for adolescent minors already receiving treatment, and requires the state to revoke the medical licenses of physicians providing the best standard of care to their trans patients.
The plaintiffs challenging this law include five Texas families, three medical professionals, and two organizations representing hundreds of families and health professionals across the state. PFLAG is the nation’s first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them. GLMA is the oldest and largest association of LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals, including those who treat LGBTQ+ patients.
This lawsuit was filed in Travis County District Court and is seeking to block S.B. 14. The Plaintiffs held a temporary injunction hearing in Austin on Aug. 15-16, 2023; and, based on two days of evidence and testimony, the district court entered an order blocking S.B. 14 on Aug. 25. The Texas Attorney General appealed that decision and Plaintiffs sought emergency relief from the Texas Supreme Court to reinstate the district court’s ruling and to stop S.B. 14 from going into effect.
On Aug. 31, 2023 the Texas Supreme Court denied Plaintiffs’ request for emergency relief, which allowed S.B. 14 to take effect on Sept. 1. But the lawsuit continues and the Plaintiffs are urging the Texas Supreme Court to uphold the district court’s injunction to stop this unconstitutional law from continuing to harm transgender youth, their families and healthcare providers while the case proceeds.
You can stay up-to-date on all case filings in the Loe v. Texas case here on the Texas Supreme Court’s website.
Earlier in 2023, the Texas Attorney General announced investigations into two hospitals that have provided care to transgender youth: Dell Children’s Medical Center and Texas Children’s Hospital. If you or someone you know has been a patient at these hospitals, you can help protect your private information by following these instructions and sending this letter to your medical provider. You may also contact the Lambda Legal Help Desk for more information.
If you or someone you know has had their access to health care interrupted because you are transgender, you may want to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
We still have court orders in place blocking PFLAG members across Texas from Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton’s order of DFPS investigations into health care for transgender youth. While our court cases continue, you can learn more about PFLAG and join here. And if you or someone you know is affected by a DFPS investigation involving health care for transgender youth, follow the steps on our Get Help page and contact the Lambda Legal Help Desk.
Disclaimer: No part of this webpage constitutes legal advice. Please contact Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Texas, or other attorneys if you need legal counsel.
Protecting parents and guardians from investigation for providing transgender adolescents with best-practice medical care
On February 22, 2022, Attorney General Ken Paxton released a non-binding opinion claiming that essential health care for transgender youth is “child abuse” under Texas law. The next day, Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate families of transgender youth who receive gender-affirming health care. Later that day, DFPS Commissioner Jamie Masters said the department would investigate families for providing this care.
These leaders’ actions were a cruel attack on vital and life-saving health care supported and endorsed by every major medical association in the United States and decades of scientific research. Texas law regarding child abuse has not changed; gender-affirming health care is still fully legal in Texas until at least September 1, 2023, and no one should report transgender youth simply for receiving this life-saving care. Any teachers, health care providers, and other mandatory reporters can access more information here.
Since March of 2022, we have won more than a dozen court orders at the district, appellate, and Texas Supreme Court, finding that Abbott, Masters, and DFPS’s actions are likely unlawful and caused irreparable harm. Most recently, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin affirmed the preliminary injunctions that block investigations into families based solely on medical care for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
Read more about those rulings here and you can visit the case pages at ACLU of Texas and Lambda Legal to see all of these decisions and case filings.
Doe I v. Abbott
Within days of Abbott’s directive and DFPS’s statement, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the ACLU of Texas filed suit, along with the law firm Baker Botts, to protect transgender young people’s right to receive essential health care.
On May 13, the Texas Supreme Court mostly upheld these lower court orders and dealt a serious blow to Abbott’s directive by finding that he has no authority to rewrite Texas law or change the definition of child abuse in our state. The Texas Supreme Court also narrowed the scope of relief in that lawsuit to the specific parties in the case—the Doe family and Dr. Megan Mooney, a licensed psychologist and mandatory reporter of child abuse under Texas law.
The court orders for the Doe family and Dr. Mooney are still in effect, and the reasoning in those orders applies to all families and mandatory reporters across the state.
PFLAG v. Abbott
The Texas Supreme Court’s narrowing of the injunction prompted a second lawsuit, PFLAG v. Abbott.
On July 8, 2022, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU of Texas, along with Texas-based law firm Baker Botts LLP, filed a new lawsuit in Texas state court on behalf of PFLAG National and three Texas families who faced DFPS investigations. We have now won multiple court orders that protect our clients and PFLAG members across Texas from harmful and intrusive investigations into medically necessary health care by DFPS.
PFLAG joined the effort to stop these harms because PFLAG’s mission is to create a caring, equitable world where LGBTQIA+ people are safe, empowered, and loved. It is the first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families. Along with PFLAG, we are collectively fighting to ensure that every member of PFLAG in Texas is protected from unwarranted and lawless investigations into essential health care for transgender youth. Some of the court orders applied specifically to PFLAG members and the named plaintiffs in our cases. If you are interested in joining or learning more about PFLAG, please click here.
Please join us in advocating for and supporting transgender youth, and contact the Lambda Legal Help Desk if you or someone in your family is receiving gender-affirming care and have questions or face the possibility of being contacted by DFPS. We have lawyers ready to help, and all of us are committed to making Texas a safe and welcoming place for all.
Pushing back against efforts to target PFLAG for supporting transgender adolescents and their families
On February 9, 2024, PFLAG National—the country’s largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ people and those who love them—received civil demands from the Office of the Attorney General of Texas to turn over documents, communications, and information related to the organization’s work helping families with transgender adolescents in Texas. PFLAG National is a plaintiff in the above-mentioned lawsuits filed against restrictions on gender-affirming medical care for adolescents in Texas: Loe v. Texas, challenging SB 14, the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, and PFLAG v. Abbott, challenging the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ rule mandating investigations of parents who work with medical professionals to provide their adolescent transgender children with medically necessary healthcare.
On February 29, 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, the Transgender Law Center, and the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP filed a separate lawsuit–PFLAG v. Office of the Attorney General of Texas–on behalf of PFLAG National in Travis County District Court. This case challenges the Attorney General’s investigative demands as exceeding the Attorney General’s authority, attempting to subvert the discovery process in the separate lawsuits challenging SB 14 and the DFPS Rule, and seeking to violate PFLAG’s and its members’ constitutional free speech and association rights, as well as the right to be free from unconstitutional searches and seizures.
On March 1, 2024, the district court issued a temporary restraining order blocking these demands. On March 25, 2024, the district court issued a temporary injunction finding that the Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of prevailing in this lawsuit and stopping the Attorney General from enforcing the demands.
For more information about these lawsuits and how to join PFLAG, visit https://pflag.org/resource/texas-faq/.