The Texas Supreme Court today refused to grant an emergency request for temporary relief and allowed SB 14, the state’s medical care ban for transgender youth, to go into effect tomorrow, Sept 1. The law also will expose doctors who care for them to lose their of medical licenses and other potential penalties.
Last week, a Texas District Court granted a temporary injunction that blocked implementation of the discriminatory ban, but the acting Texas Attorney General immediately appealed, thereby staying the injunction. Together, with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Transgender Law Center, and the law firms Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, Lambda Legal urged the Texas Supreme Court to reinstate the injunction but the Court refused to do so and did not provide any written explanation for allowing the law to remain in effect.
In its ruling, the district court clearly articulated the ways in which SB 14 likely violates the Texas Constitution by infringing upon the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children, infringing upon Texas physicians’ right of occupational freedom, and discriminating against transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria because of their sex, sex stereotypes and transgender status.
— David Taffet