Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
A Texas appeals court has upheld a trial court’s temporary restraining order blocking the Department of Family and Protective Services from investigating the family of a trans teen for child abuse.
The ruling came after Attorney General Ken Paxton last week appealed the TRO issued in a lawsuit challenging Gov. Greg Abbott’s Feb. 22 directive to DFPS to investigate families that provide their trans children with access to gender-affirming health care and the healthcare professionals that provide the care. The directive also ordered healthcare professionals, teachers and others to report such families to DFPS.
Abbott’s directive was based on Paxton’s non-binding and widely discredited opinion, issued Feb. 21, declaring gender-affirming health care for children is child abuse.
A woman who works for DFPS, her trans teen and her husband, along with a psychologist, filed suit against Abbott and DFPS last week, saying that a DFPS investigator had already been to their house.
The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Amy Meachum in that lawsuit applies only to the plaintiffs in that lawsuit, but a hearing is set for Friday, March 11, to consider expanding the TRO to all families with trans children in Texas, as well as all mandatory reporters.
— Tammye Nash
