A district court judge in Texas temporarily suspended on Wednesday a child abuse investigation into parents pursuing gender-affirming care for their trans daughter.
The probe began after Texas’ GOP governor, Greg Abbott, ordered the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to treat medically approved care – like hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgery – as violations of child abuse laws. Abbott justified his decree with a non-binding legal opinion from Texas’ right-wing attorney general, Ken Paxton.
Ironically, a Department of Family and Protective Services employee was among the first parents to be investigated. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on the employee’s behalf.
The Wall Street Journal explains:
The parents said their daughter was receiving medical treatment for gender dysphoria. Their child’s birth certificate said she was male, but she now identifies as female and has been receiving medication to delay the onset of puberty among other effects.
The lawsuit says the child “has been traumatized by the prospect that she could be separated from her parents and could lose access to the medical treatment that has enabled her to thrive.”
CNN reports:
Judge Amy Clark Meachum wrote in an order that the family named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit “will suffer irreparable injury” unless the defendants — Abbott and DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters — are restrained from investigating families of transgender children.
Without the temporary restraining order, Meachum wrote, the plaintiffs — identified as Jane, John and Mary Doe — would face “the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation.
“Additionally, Meachum wrote that if Jane Doe, a DFPS employee, were placed on a Child Abuse Registry as a result of the investigation, she “could lose the ability to practice her profession and both Jane and John Doe could lose their ability to work with minors and volunteer in their community.”
The Washington Post adds:
Meachum’s ruling grants a temporary restraining order to the plaintiffs represented in the case, but it does not prevent Texas from investigating other parents. The judge will consider that question in an additional hearing on March 11.
Within hours of the ruling, the state appealed the decision in what Lambda Legal counsel Omar Gonzalez-Pagan called a “very unusual, cruel and frankly, extraordinary move.”
“They’re seeking an appeal for a temporary restraining order that applies only to four plaintiffs,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “It is a cruel and punitive zealousness with which the Texas governor and attorney general are proceeding to persecute transgender youth and their families. It is reprehensible and should really cause alarm for everybody.”
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Texas’ attempted criminalization of trans care for children “government overreach at its worst.”
“Respected medical organizations have said that access to gender-affirming care for transgender children can benefit mental health, lower suicide rates, and improve other health outcomes. Children, their parents, and their doctors should have the freedom to make the medical decisions that are best for each young person—without politicians getting in the way,” Biden said in a statement.
The president touted several new initiatives from the Department of Health and Human Services designed to “to keep transgender children in Texas and their families safe.” They include reinforcing privacy protections for families with a trans child and reaffirming their right to receive medical care.