Families and physicians have filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas alleging a bill banning healthcare for transgender youth is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
The law, Senate Bill 14, was signed last month and will have “devastating consequences for transgender adolescents in Texas,” when it goes into effect Sept. 1, according to the lawsuit. SB 14 bans transgender children from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The lawsuit was filed in state district court in Austin and also names the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the state attorney general and the Texas Medical Board as defendants.
“The Ban discriminates against parents seeking care for their transgender adolescent children in the exercise of their fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” the lawsuit states. “Texas is endangering the health and wellbeing of transgender adolescents and violating the Texas Constitution’s guarantees of equality under the law by enacting a discriminatory and categorical prohibition on medical treatments for transgender youth that remain available to others.”
The lawsuit was filed by several parent groups who have five transgender children between them, PFLAG, a national organization that that advocates for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies, and three physicians who are licensed to practice in Texas. They are represented by American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center, and the law firms Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.
The lawsuit also alleges that SB 14 deprives physicians of their “vested property interest their medical licenses” and their rights to occupational liberty;
The lawsuit is seeking temporary injunction stopping the enforcement of SB 14 as the case goes to trial and following that, a permanent injunction of the law.
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