Senate Bill 14, banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors in Texas, is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, and Abbott is expected to sign the measure quickly. Once he has signed it, SB 14 is scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 1.
However, advocates for transgender youth have pledged to challenge the bill in court as soon as Abbott signs it.
According to a press release from Transgender Education Network of Texas, Lambda Legal, ACLU of Texas and ACLU, “Texas Senate Bill 14 bans the only evidence-based care for gender dysphoria for transgender people under 18 and aims to strip doctors of their medical licenses for providing their patients with the care they know to be medically necessary. Texas lawmakers have ignored the warnings of transgender youth, their families, and the medical establishment about the harms of this law.” The press release noted that similar restrictions enacted in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Montana have already been challenged in court, and that a state court judge in Missouri recently blocked enforcement of the Missouri attorney general’s emergency order blocking provision of gender-affirming care.
The four organizations issued this joint statement:
“We will be filing a lawsuit to protect transgender youth in Texas from being stripped of access to health care that keeps them healthy and alive. Coming on top of the effort last year to classify providing medically necessary and scientifically proven care to transgender youth as child abuse and threatening to tear Texas families with transgender children apart, an effort currently blocked in state court, Texas lawmakers have seen fit to double down.
“They are hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth, in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care as appropriate and necessary. Transgender youth in Texas deserve the support and care necessary to give them the same chance to thrive as their peers. Medically necessary health care is a critical part of helping transgender adolescents succeed in school, establish healthy relationships with their friends and family, and live authentically as themselves. We will defend the rights of transgender youth in court, just as we have done in other states engaging in this anti-science and discriminatory fear-mongering.”
— Tammye Nash
