In less than a month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued three doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors in an attempt to enforce a state law that bans such care.
The first lawsuit, filed October 17, alleged that May Lau, MD, MPH, of UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, “provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of ‘transitioning’ the child’s biological sex,” according to a press release from Paxton’s office.
In the legal filing for the case, prosecutors claimed that Lau misled pharmacies, insurance providers, and patients by falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to hide that she was prescribing testosterone for minor patients.
A second lawsuit filed on October 30 alleged that Hector Granados, MD, of Pediatric Endocrinology Associates in El Paso, Texas, provided puberty blockers and hormones to children, according to a press release.
Granados was also accused of falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records, according to the lawsuit. It also claimed that Granados wrote prescriptions for minor patients for “purposes of transitioning their biological sex.”
Finally, on November 8, Paxton alleged that M. Brett Cooper, MD, of UT Southwestern Medical Center, provided hormones to children and falsified medical records, prescriptions, and billing records, according to the legal filing.
All three announcements from Paxton noted that healthcare professionals who violate the law can have their medical license revoked by the Texas Medical Board.
Texas has been coming down hard on gender-affirming care, even before the statewide ban that went into effect in September 2023. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered state welfare agencies to investigate pediatric gender-affirming care as child abuse.
Not long thereafter, Texas Children’s Hospital shuttered its gender-affirming care program. Then in May 2023, Paxton announced investigations into both Texas Children’s Hospital and Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin around their gender-affirming care programs.
MedPage Today reached out to several physicians for comment on the three lawsuits, all of whom declined. However, numerous medical groups and professional societies have come out in support of gender-affirming care in recent years.
In a 2021 statement, the American Medical Association (AMA) urged governors to oppose state legislation that would prohibit medically necessary gender-affirming care for minors. It called efforts to restrict such care “a dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine.”
The statement also highlighted that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
In 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics re-affirmed its 2018 policy statement recommending that youth who identify as transgender and gender diverse should “have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space.”
Earlier this month, delegates of the AMA emphasized that gender-affirming care should not be limited to adult patients.
Even with these official statements from leading medical organizations, 25 states have banned gender-affirming healthcare for minors in recent years.
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