AUSTIN, Texas — A Travis County judge has ordered the state to stop child-abuse investigations into two families who are helping their transgender kids access gender-affirming care.
State District Judge Amy Clark Meachum wrote the investigations are “gross invasions of privacy” that intrude on parental rights and decision-making. The order bars the agency from expanding the definition of child abuse in order to investigate the families.
Meachum’s order, delivered Friday evening, determined that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services violated state law by improperly implementing a new rule on gender-affirming care at the insistence of Gov. Greg Abbott in February.
The judge said she was still weighing whether to provide additional relief to Texas members of PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group that sued to block child-abuse investigations into families who are members of the group. She’s also still weighing whether to provide more relief to a third family that sued but had already been cleared of abuse allegations.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly appealed, as he did with a similar injunction issued by Meachum in March.
In a joint statement, lawyers for the families praised the judge for recognizing “that being subjected to an unlawful and unwarranted investigation causes irreparable harm for these families who are doing nothing more than caring for and affirming their children and seeking the best course of care for them in consultation with their medical providers.”
In her order, Meachum said the families — identified in court documents under the pseudonyms Roe and Voe — would be placed in harm’s way if the investigations were allowed to continue, including depriving or disrupting medically necessary care for their transgender teens.
The child abuse policy also infringes on the parents’ right to make medical decisions for their children in consultation with health care providers and inflicts trauma on the adolescents, Meachum wrote.
Meachum’s injunction blocked the child-welfare agency from taking any action against the families other than to close its investigations — if that can be done without further contact with the parents or children.
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The ordeal began in February when Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion that said gender-affirming care could be grounds for child-abuse under state laws. National medical experts said Paxton relied on false claims, exaggerations and errors to reach that conclusion, but Abbott followed with a Feb. 22 letter directing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate such care as abuse, and the state’s child-welfare agency agreed to do so.
Abbott faces legal roadblocks
In the months since Abbott ordered the state’s child welfare agency to begin investigating parents of transgender children for “child abuse,” experts have repeatedly argued the directive carries no legal weight and legal challenges have followed.
The first lawsuit was filed by a mother, identified only as Jane Doe, who worked for the Department of Family and Protective Services and came under investigation after asking a supervisor what Abbott’s directive meant for her transgender teen. Meachum responded in March by issuing a statewide injunction barring all abuse investigations based solely on providing gender-affirming care.
Paxton’s bid to overturn the injunction is still before the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals, but in the meantime, the Texas Supreme Court substantially limited the scope of the judge’s order, striking down the statewide injunction in May while allowing it to apply only to the Doe family.
Experts say the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling May ruling struck down the statewide injunction because the court still needs to be provided with more evidence to grant full protection to all families with transgender children in the state, not just families DFPS has already begun investigating.
“Though that protection is not at this time permanent it is because it’s too early to grant final relief,” Stephen Sheppard, former dean of St. Mary’s School of Law in San Antonio told USA TODAY in May. “There’s not been a trial yet. But this is an indication of what all three levels of Texas courts believe (will be) the outcome after the trial.”
When Child Protective Services resumed child abuse investigations after the state Supreme Court’s ruling, three more families filed suit, this time joined by PFLAG, a leading LGBTQ advocacy organization. Last month, a different Travis County judge responded by issuing a temporary restraining order blocking investigations into the three families and any member of PFLAG.
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On Wednesday, during a daylong hearing in Austin on whether to convert the restraining order into a longer-lasting injunction, lawyers for Paxton argued state law gives the child-welfare agency the authority to protect minors from abuse, including the potentially improper use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
A lawyer for Texas also made false claims about the purpose of gender-affirming care and tried to broadly associate the medical care with political ideologies.
Lawyers for the families of transgender adolescents said the safety of the procedures is well established in science, and children are treated only in consultation with mental health professionals, family doctors and specialists.
Two mothers who are under CPS investigation testified about how the fear of being removed from their home worsened anxieties for their transgender teens, both of whom had to continue high school from virtually this spring.
Gender-affirmation typically begins with a social transition, with youths possibly adopting new names, pronouns and clothing that better expresses their gender identity.
Medical treatment for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the distress caused when a person’s body does not match their gender identity, can include puberty blockers to delay body and voice changes so that a teen doesn’t have to develop physical characteristics of a different gender after they have already transitioned socially. The effects of puberty blockers are reversible, doctors say.
Hormone therapy, which begins after the onset of puberty, can introduce lasting body changes, while surgery typically does not occur before age 18, doctors say.
Texas families with transgender children who are worried about being investigated by DFPS can gain protection through PFLAG membership, according to the organization. Because courts have only ruled on cases involving PFLAG members, families who are not a part of the group do not have full legal protection against state investigation at this time.
Bills that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth have been introduced in the Texas legislature but have failed to become law.
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