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A supervisor for the state Department of Family and Protective Services testified Friday that the child abuse investigations into families of transgender children ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott are being held to a different standard than other cases.
Investigators can’t discuss cases with colleagues via text or email and they are required to investigate the cases, even if there’s no evidence of abuse, according to Randa Mulanax, an investigative supervisor with DFPS.
Mulanax was called to testify at a court hearing before state District Judge Amy Clark Meachum to determine whether to block Abbott’s Feb. 22 directive to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their children.
Mulanax has decided to resign as a result of this directive after six years with the agency.
“I’ve always felt that, at the end of the day, the department had children’s best interest at heart,” she said. “I no longer feel that way.”
Abbott’s move to have families of transgender children investigated for abuse — made one week before the state’s March 1 primary — followed a non-binding legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the state on behalf of the parents of a transgender child who were investigated by child welfare workers after the mother, a state employee, asked questions about the new directive.
Meachum granted a temporary restraining order last week, which halted this one case, but there are currently nine families under investigation for gender-affirming care, according to DFPS.
Lawyers for the ACLU and Lambda argued in court Friday that Meachum should grant a statewide injunction on all of these investigations until the legitimacy of this directive can be argued in trial.
“The defendant’s directives and actions are traumatizing,” said ACLU of Texas attorney Brian Klosterboer. “Killing the ability of transgender youth to continue to get necessary care, and forcing physicians and mandatory reporters … to decide between civil and criminal penalties … and doing what’s right for the health of their patients.”
A lawyer for the state argued that simply opening a child abuse investigation into a family is not necessarily evidence of harm to that family, and that it would be overreach for “the judicial branch to infringe on the executive branch’s ability to perform such a critical task as ensuring the welfare of the state’s children.”
Mulanax said employees have been told not to communicate with colleagues about these cases via email or text message, which she described as unusual and “unethical.”
She said investigators have been told they cannot mark these cases as “priority none,” a designation staff use when they believe a report does not merit investigation, and must alert department leadership and the general counsel when they’re working on one of these cases.
A lawyer for the state asked Mulanax if any transgender children had been removed from their homes or been taken off of medication prescribed by a doctor. Mulanax said the cases had not been resolved and to her knowledge, no one had been removed or taken off of medication.
This story will be updated.
