Texas is demanding names & medical care plans from trans youth. PFLAG is standing up to the state.

PFLAG National is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) after he demanded the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization turn over records related to the families of transgender young people in the state seeking gender-affirming care.  

The group’s Wednesday petition, filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Transgender Law Center, seeks to block a civil investigation demand it received from Paxton’s office on February 9. The AG’s office requested documents related to statements made by PFLAG CEO Brian Bond in a sworn affidavit filed as part of the organization’s ongoing legal challenge of S.B. 14, the 2023 Texas law banning gender-affirming care for minors.

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In his July affidavit, Bond attested that since S.B. 14 was passed, “PFLAG families with transgender and nonbinary adolescents shared their contingency plans — those with the resources to move or seek out-of-state care have begun firming up their plans to do so, while the vast majority without those resources have been asking chapters for alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.”

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As the Washington Post notes, while S.B. 14 bans trans young people from receiving gender-affirming care in Texas, it does not prevent families from seeking such care, which has been endorsed by every major American medical association, in other states. But that has not stopped Paxton from investigating healthcare providers outside of Texas in recent months. According to the Post, Paxton’s office has sought medical records from providers in Washington state and Georgia.

In its civil investigation demand, dated February 5, the AG’s office requested PFLAG turn over all documents and communications related to the “contingency plans” and “alternative avenues to maintain care” that Bond mentioned in his affidavit. Paxton also demanded all “recommendations, referrals, and/or lists of pediatric and/or adolescent ‘health care providers’… in Texas, that PFLAG (or any of its representatives) has created, maintained, received, or distributed since March 8, 2023,” along with communications to or from gender-affirming care providers Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Seattle Children’s Hospital, telehealth provider QMed, QueerDoc, and Plume Health.

Paxton’s office claimed in its civil investigation demand that it was investigating alleged “misrepresentations regarding Gender Transitioning and Reassignment Treatments and Procedures” potentially in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (DTPA). This week, however, Paxton’s office told the Washington Post that it is investigating whether medical providers are “committing insurance fraud as part of a scheme to evade the law, such as by prescribing hormones for a pretextual medical diagnosis unrelated to gender transition.”

“Any organization seeking to violate this law, commit fraud, or weaponize science and medicine against children will be held accountable,” the Paxton said in a statement.

In its Wednesday filing, PFLAG said that Paxton’s demands violate its members’ “rights to freedom of petition, speech and assembly and to be free from unjustified searches and seizures, are contrary to the OAG’s authority under the DTPA, and impermissibly seek to evade the protections afforded to PFLAG as a civil litigant.”

“These Demands are a clear and unmistakable overreach by the OAG in retaliation for PFLAG successfully standing up for its members, who include Texas transgender youth and their families, against the OAG’s, the Attorney General’s, and the State of Texas’s relentless campaign to persecute Texas trans youth and their loving parents,” the suit reads.

“This mean-spirited demand from the Attorney General’s Office is petty and invasive, which is why we want the court to put an end to it,” Bond said in a statement.

Lambda Legal senior counsel Karen Loewy said Paxon’s demand “smacks of retaliation against PFLAG National for standing up for those families against the State’s persecution.”

“This is just another cruel attempt to circumvent the legal system and target families and friends who support transgender people,” Lynly Egyes, legal director at Transgender Law Center, told the Post. “Our communities will not be intimidated by the cruel machinations of out-of-touch politicians.”