“No family should have to fear being torn apart because they are supporting their trans child.”
So reads, in part, a statement issued by Adri Pérez, policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas, as the legal advocates launch a salvo in the courts aimed at blocking a statewide directive issued by Gov. Greg Abbott that they say persecutes transgender children and their families.
Abbott’s order, issued last week, orders all “mandatory reporters” to notify the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) of any trans child receiving gender-affirming care. Abbott also believes parents of those children should be prosecuted.
Abbott issued his order in lockstep with the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton’s nonbinding opinion. Issued last month, that opinion states that giving children access to sex reassignment surgery, puberty blockers, and testosterone and estrogen treatments are child abuse.
However, those beliefs fly in the face of the opinions held by several medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association, who have all said the new Lone Star State edict is dangerous and that it inhibits necessary medical treatments.
One of the individuals represented in the ACLU’s suit is a DFPS employee identified only as Jane Doe, who “works on the review of reports of abuse and neglect.” Jane Doe’s husband John Doe and their 16-year-old transgender daughter Mary Doe are also represented as plaintiffs.
According to the ACLU, Mary Doe is on leave from her position with DFPS due to her daughter’s ongoing transition and has already been visited by an investigator seeking Mary Doe’s medical records and an interview with the family.
Abbott, Paxton and the ongoing investigation have “terrorized the Doe family and inflicted ongoing and irreparable harm,” the ACLU said.
Megan Mooney, a psychologist in Houston who counsels youth experiencing gender dysphoria, is also represented in the suit. Abbott’s order has left Mooney in an “untenable position,” the suit says.
Mooney is a mandatory reporter according to Texas law, so if Mooney refuses to report her patients to DFPS, she puts herself in jeopardy of criminal penalties and losing her license. But if she follows the order and reports her patients, she “would be violating her professional standards of ethics and inflict serious harm and trauma on her clients,” according to the suit.
Already, some of the state’s district attorneys have publicly stated that they will neither investigate nor prosecute cases involving trans children’s gender-affirming care.
“I will not prosecute any parent, any facility, or anyone else for providing medically appropriate care to transgender children,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told Texas Public Radio.
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