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A state judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether Texas’ child protection agency can open child abuse investigations into parents who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal asked state District Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Austin to issue a temporary restraining order during a hearing Wednesday morning. They are representing a family under investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services but have argued that the judge should block these investigations statewide.
This lawsuit follows a series of actions by state officials equating certain gender-affirming health care with child abuse. In late February, in response to a question from a state lawmaker, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legally nonbinding opinion claiming that the use of puberty-blocking medications and gender-affirming surgeries — which are rarely performed on children — could constitute child abuse under the Texas Family Code.
A few days later, in a letter, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to open investigations into parents that may have provided such care to their children.
“Because the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is responsible for protecting children from abuse, I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas,” Abbott wrote.
In a statement that same day, DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters said the department would “follow Texas law” as laid out in the opinion from the attorney general.
The ACLU and Lambda Legal represent a DFPS employee who has been tasked with investigating these cases. The employee, who is anonymous in the lawsuit, has a transgender child.
When the employee asked her supervisor for clarification about how DFPS would implement this new directive, she was put on leave, the plaintiff said. Two days later, an investigator from Child Protective Services visited the family and interviewed the parents and child.
“The CPS investigator disclosed that the sole allegation against Jane Doe and John Doe is that they have a transgender daughter and that their daughter may have been provided with medically necessary gender-affirming health care,” the lawsuit said.
Lambda Legal lawyer Paul Castillo said he was aware of at least two other families, beyond the Does, who have been contacted by DFPS for investigations. And the chilling effect for parents of trans children has been immense, he said.
“Families aside from [those investigated] will cease care,” he said. “As a result of this order … medical providers have stopped care in terms of prescriptions to transgender kids because the threat of continuing to provide, the harm is so great.”
In Wednesday’s hearing, a lawyer for the state argued that the governor’s letter has been misconstrued to imply that all parents who provide gender-affirming care would be investigated by DFPS.
The opinion from the attorney general was intended to show “not that gender-affirming treatments are necessarily or per se abusive, but that these treatments, like virtually any other implement, could be used by somebody to harm a child,” Assistant Attorney General Ryan Kercher said.
Kercher argued that Abbott’s letter was merely clarifying a “concern” that gender-affirming treatments could never be considered child abuse.
Meachum challenged that argument, asking how common it is for the governor to issue directives like this to DFPS. Kercher said he did not know. The judge said she would rule by the end of the day Wednesday.
