PFLAG National, Lambda Legal, and ACLU File New Lawsuit to Stop Texas from Persecuting Parents with Transgender Kids

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Texas, along with Texas-based law firm Baker Botts LLP, today filed a new lawsuit in Texas state court on behalf of PFLAG National and three Texas families. The suit requests that the court block state investigations of PFLAG families in Texas who are supporting their transgender children with medically necessary health care.

The lawsuit names Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued a February directive stating that health care that is medically necessary for treating gender dysphoria should be considered a form of child abuse. The suit also names Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) Commissioner Jaime Masters and DFPS as defendants.

“For nearly 50 years, PFLAG parents have united against government efforts to harm their LGBTQ+ kids. By going after trans kids and their families, Gov. Abbott has picked a fight with thousands of families in Texas and across the country who are united as members of PFLAG National,” said Brian K. Bond, Executive Director of PFLAG National. “Loving and affirming your child and empowering them to be themselves is the highest calling of any parent, no matter your child's gender. If it takes a court ruling to ensure that the law protects families who lead with love in support of transgender Texans, so be it.”

PFLAG provides confidential peer support, education, and advocacy to LGBTQIA+ people, their parents and families, and allies. With a nationwide network of hundreds of chapters—including 17 in Texas—PFLAG National works with families, schools, and communities to build safety and support for transgender youth.

In an earlier lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal, the ACLU, ACLU of Texas, and Baker Botts, the Texas Supreme Court upheld part of an appeals court order preventing DFPS from investigating parents who work with medical professionals to provide their adolescent transgender children with medically necessary health care.

While the court emphasized that neither Attorney General Ken Paxton nor Abbott has the power or authority to direct DFPS to investigate the provision of lifesaving health care for transgender youth as child abuse, the court limited the order blocking all investigations to the specific plaintiffs who filed suit.

"Notwithstanding the clear language in the recent Texas Supreme Court ruling that Attorney General Paxton and Gov. Abbott do not have the power or authority to direct DFPS to investigate loving families who are providing medically necessary care for their transgender child as child abuse, the agency seems determined to target these families and threaten to tear them apart," Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Paul D. Castillo said. "With today's filing, we are joining with PFLAG in working to protect all Texas families who simply want to make sure their children are safe, happy, and healthy. It is unconscionable that the state wants to interfere in that relationship."

“It is indefensible for any state leader to repeatedly attack trans Texans and weaponize the child welfare system against the loving families of transgender kids and teens,” said Adri Pérez, policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas. “We will continue to fight against these baseless attacks on our community. Transgender kids deserve to have life-saving gender-affirming care in Texas so that they might live safely and grow up to be transgender adults. During this Pride Month, we must take a stand against government leaders that are hellbent on stoking fear, and trying to criminalize transgender young people and their families.”

Doctors and medical organizations have been providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth for decades. However, it has increasingly become a target of attacks from state lawmakers. Federal courts have blocked the enforcement of legislative bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in Arkansas and Alabama and no court in the country has ever classified gender-affirming care as child abuse. Texas is the only state threatening to take children from loving parents who are providing this lifesaving care and placing them in the foster care system. The state’s foster care system is already overburdened and in crisis, and placing more kids into the system due to false accusations of child abuse will hurt everyone.

Lambda Legal, the ACLU, and ACLU of Texas defend the rights and dignity of LGBTQ+ people alongside our partner organizations in Texas, including the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), Equality Texas, Texas Freedom Network, HRC, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), PFLAG, and others. Shared resources and information can be found at txtranskids.org. If you’ve been contacted by DFPS or know of a family that has been contacted by DFPS, please contact the Lambda Legal Help Desk.

The full complaint can be found here: https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/abbott_tx_20220608_pflag-v-abbott-petition