Judge Amy Clark Meachum
UPDATE: Immediately after Travis County District Judge Amy Clark Meachum on Friday, March 11, issued an injunction halting all the Department of Family and Protective Services’ investigations into families providing their transgender children access to gender-affirming healthcare, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the ruling to the Texas Third Court of Appeals.
That same court earlier this week dismissed Paxton’s appeal of Meachum’s temporary restraining order halting such an investigation only of the family that filed suit against Gov. Greg Abbott and his directive to DFPS to launch such investigations. Abbott’s directive was based on a non-binding opinion Paxton issued that gender-affirming healthcare for transgender children is child abuse. Abbott’s opinion has been widely discredited by legal experts and by the authors of research he cited in the opinion.
Paxton has publicly claimed that Meachum’s injunction halting investigations is “frozen” because he has appealed it.
Lambda Legal, one of the agencies representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, issued a statement today (Saturday, March 12) that criticized Paxton “for continuing his unrelenting attack on transgender Texas youth and the families and medical professionals who love and care for them.” The statement reads, in part:
“We consider the appeal baseless. Just like the State’s appeal dismissed earlier this week, we do not believe that this new appeal has any merit or that it should affect whether the injunction can remain in place. The court’s decision makes clear how harmful and lawless the state’s actions are and we will fight to ensure the properly issued injunction remains in place.”
The statement also urges any family “contacted by DFPS notwithstanding the court’s decision” to contact Lambda Legal’s Help Desk immediately.”
ORIGINAL POST: A Travis County District Court has issued an injunction today (Friday, March 11) blocking the state of Texas from implementing Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive ordering the Department of Family and Protective Services to launch child abuse investigations into families providing their trans children with access to gender-affirming medical care. Abbott’s directive could have forced trans children in loving and supportive families to be placed in foster care and could have seen parents criminally charged with child abuse.
Travis County District Judge Amy Clark Meachum last week issued a temporary restraining order to protect the plaintiff family in Doe v. Abbott, a lawsuit challenging Abbott’s unfounded directive, from investigation. Today Judge Meachum expanded that TRO to protect all such families in the state — several of whom had already seen investigations started against them.
Lambda Legal and The ACLU of Texas are representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Paul Castillo said after the ruling, “We feel relieved and vindicated that the judge understood the magnitude and breadth of the harm that would have resulted if Texas’ child welfare agency — at the direction of the governor — were allowed to continue enforcing this lawless directive.
“Parents who love their transgender children and work with healthcare providers to support and affirm their well-being should be celebrated, rather than investigated as criminals as the state sought to do here,” Castillo continued. “We are grateful that the judge issued an order today preventing enforcement of these directives statewide against any family in Texas, and made clear that no one who counts as a mandatory reporter can be forced to turn in families for investigation simply for doing what is right for their child.”
ACLU of Texas attorney Brian Klosterboer added, “The court’s decisive ruling today brings some needed relief to trans youth in Texas but we cannot stop fighting. Today’s witnesses — including a parent targeted by these attacks, experts on medical care, and a supervisor within Texas Child Protective Services — gave courageous and emotional testimony about the fear and harm caused by these unlawful actions. All trans young people deserve to live freely as their true selves.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include a DFPS employee, her husband and their transgender teenager and Dr. Megan Mooney, a licensed psychologist who is considered a mandatory reporter under Texas law who has said she cannot comply with the governor’s directive without harming her clients and violating her ethical obligations.
Chase Strangio, deputy director for Trans Justice with the American Civil Liberties Union LGBTQ & HIV Project, said, “The judge recognized the governor and DFPS’s actions for what they were — unauthorized and unconstitutional exercises of power that cause severe, immediate and devastating harms to transgender youth and their families across Texas. We are relieved for Texas families and will never stop fighting for trans justice.”
The lawsuit was filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union Jon L. Stryker and Slobodan Randjelović LGBTQ & HIV Project, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, the ACLU of Texas, and the law firm of Baker Botts LLP.
