Dr. May Lau
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Dr. May Lau, who has been under attack by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for providing age-appropriate gender affirming care to adolescents at Children’s Hospital in Dallas, has had her Texas physician’s license cancelled at her request.
In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed SB 14, which prohibits “procedures and treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment or gender dysphoria” for transgender minors. The law prohibits insurance companies from offering coverage of those services for minors and lists a variety of surgeries to sterilize a person — operations that aren’t performed on minors.
But also prohibited is the use of puberty blockers, whose effect is reversible upon stopping usage. Along with the prohibition is a long list of exceptions that would allow the use of puberty blockers since treatment with the medication has been proven safe.
Also prohibited is giving concentrated doses of testosterone to “females” or estrogen to “males.” The intention of those lines is assigned male or female at birth. Nowhere in the law is there any indication the authors have any comprehension of or regard for gender identity.
Families of transgender youth sued to stop the law from taking effect. Lower courts blocked it, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed that ruling, allowing the legislation to become law.
Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Lau in October 2024 for prescribing testosterone to 21 minors after the law took effect. It’s unclear how Paxton obtained that information without parents or guardians turning themselves in. Medical records are supposed to be confidential.
Lau graduated from Albany Medical College in New York in 1998. She did her residency in pediatrics in Albany and a fellowship in adolescent medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She lists her primary specialty as pediatrics and secondary specialty as adolescent medicine.
She has no malpractice investigations or disciplinary actions listed on her Texas Medical Board records.
Lau had hospital privileges at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas and Plano and, in addition to her practice, is an associate professor at UT Southwestern. She is also a UT Southwestern certified faculty coach and served as interim associate dean of student affairs at UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell School of Public Health. She has been named a D Magazine Best Doctor every year since 2011.
In a press release, Paxton called Lau a “disturbed left-wing activist” who “permanently hurt kids by giving them experimental drugs.” She is accused of prescribing hormones, which are not permanent and not experimental.
On Oct. 9, Lau’s Texas medical license was cancelled by the Texas Medical Board. Her attorney, Craig Smyser, wrote in an email to KERA that Lau is moving her practice to Oregon and has no reason to maintain her Texas license.
Smyser wrote that Lau denies Paxton’s allegations and said the lawsuit was filed in another county outside of Dallas that has no jurisdiction in the case.
Last year, Paxton sued three doctors including Lau for treating gender dysphoria. The case of another UT Southwestern doctor is pending and the case against an El Paso physician was dismissed.
Paxton’s office claims the lawsuit against Lau continues.