A Texas judge granted a limited temporary restraining order on Wednesday stopping the state’s child protective services agency from investigating the parents of a 16-year-old transgender teen for alleged child abuse.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, Travis County District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a restraining order to prevent the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) from investigating the teen’s parents, the teen, and a licensed psychologist. The teen’s mother works at the Texas DFPS, while the licensed psychologist has objected to the reporting requirement imposed on her by the state, arguing that it will compromise her confidential relationship with clients.
Last year, Texas governor Greg Abbott asked the department to issue a determination on whether gender-transition surgery on children constitutes child abuse; in August, the Texas DFPS confirmed that it did. Abbott then ordered the DFPS, beginning last week, to investigate doctors and parents who enable a child’s gender-transition surgery.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton also said last week that gender-transition procedures — including hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sex-reassignment procedures — are abuse under existing Texas law.
Tuesday, Abbott directed the DFPS to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.”
The governor wrote that the attorney general’s opinion “makes clear” that “it is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise health body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen.”
The ACLU/Lamda lawsuit accused Abbott, the DFPS, and the agency’s commissioner of violating the constitutional rights of transgender children by denying them equal protection under law.
“Their actions caused terror and anxiety among transgender youth and their families across the Lone Star State and singled out transgender youth and their families for discrimination and harassment,” the groups wrote in their request for the court order.
Meachum scheduled a hearing for March 11, when she will consider whether to issue a statewide temporary injunction that would block the governor, the agency commissioner, and the DFPS from investigating other people who enable gender-transition surgeries on minors.
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