A group of families with transgender children and physicians who treat trans minors today (Thursday, July 13) filed suit in a state district court in Austin challenging Senate Bill 14, the measure Greg Abbott signed into law last month that bans gender-affirming health care for transgender minors.

ACLU of Texas, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center and the law firms Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP filed the lawsuit on behalf of several parent groups who have five trans children between them, PFLAG and three physicians licensed to practice in Texas.

The lawsuit warns that if it is allowed to go into effect on Sept. 1 as planned, SB 14 will have devastating consequences for transgender adolescents in Texas.

According to the lawsuit, “The ban discriminates against parents seeking care for their transgender adolescent children in the exercise of their fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children.

“Texas is endangering the health and wellbeing of transgender adolescents and violating the Texas Constitution’s guarantees of equality under the law by enacting a discriminatory and categorical prohibition on medical treatments for transgender youth that remain available to others,” it continues.

The lawsuit alleges that SB 14 deprives physicians of their “vested property interest their medical licenses” and their rights to occupational liberty,” and seeks a temporary injunction stopping the enforcement of SB 14 as the case goes to trial and following that, a permanent injunction of the law.

An ACLU email announcing the lawsuit calls SB 14 “the textbook definition of discrimination: It forbids transgender youth from accessing best-practice care but allows anyone else to obtain the same treatments. Since Texas lawmakers refuse to stop these cruel attacks on our children, we’re taking them to court. … This lawsuit is about making sure that Texas is a safe place to live and raise a family.”

— Tammye Nash