Texas Law Banning Transgender Health Care to Take Effect
Texas Tribune.The law was challenged by a group of plaintiffs, including five families with transgender children, three doctors specializing in transgender care, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, and an organization for LGBTQ health professionals.
The plaintiffs argued that the ban on gender-affirming care discriminates against transgender youth, infringes on parents’ right to make medical decisions they believe are in their children’s best interests, and violates doctors’ freedom to practice medicine.In her ruling, Cantú Hexsel agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving the law “interferes with Texas families’ private decisions and strips Texas parents … of the right to seek, direct, and provide medical care for their children.”“The evidence before the Court does not support the conclusion the Act protects the health or wellbeing of minors,” Cantú Hexsel wrote. “Instead, the evidence demonstrates that the Act threatens the health and wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”The judge criticized the law, rejecting the state’s argument that it was designed to protect minors from pursuing potentially irreversible transition-related treatments that they may later grow to regret.
She noted that the law only bars transgender-identifying minors from accessing hormone therapy and puberty blockers, and not children with other medical conditions requiring hormonal interventions.“It prohibits the treatments only when used to treat an adolescent for gender dysphoria, even though the risks of the treatment are similar, if not the same, regardless of the condition for which they are prescribed,” Cantú Hexsel wrote.
