A Texas appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the state from investigating parents who provided gender-affirming medical treatments to their transgender children, which Gov. Greg Abbott called abusive.
Abbott, a Republican, ordered the Department of Family Protective Services to conduct child abuse investigations in February 2022 against families whose children received treatment as minors.
A month later, a district court judge imposed the statewide sentence temporary injunction He said that such investigations put children and their families at risk.
An appeals court in Austin upheld a district court judge’s order in a pair of rulings Friday, handing a victory to LGBTQ groups, medical professionals and civil liberties advocates who have opposed actions by conservative politicians. dozens of states criminalizing the provision of gender-affirming treatments for trans youth.
“This is a much-needed victory for trans youth and those who love and support them,” the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday.
Representatives for Abbott and DFPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ACLU and Lambda Legal challenged Abbott’s order on behalf of the family of a 16-year-old transgender girl targeted for investigation.
The child had taken puberty retarding drugs and hormone therapy. Her mother was a DFPS employee who was placed on paid administrative leave after she questioned what Abbott’s order meant for her family.
In 2022, a district court judge said the governor’s order could cause “irreparable harm” to families, given the stigma and loss of livelihoods of being the target of a child abuse investigation.
Texas will restrict gender-affirming care to youth in 2023, becoming one of more than a dozen states that currently prohibit young transgender people from taking certain puberty blockers and hormone therapies, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
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