The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and LGBTQ+ rights organizations announced plans Thursday to file a lawsuit against the state of Texas over Senate Bill 14, which would ban certain medical treatments for transgender kids.
After passing the Texas Senate Wednesday, the bill is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law.
The ACLU pledged in a release Thursday to fight the legislation, pointing to court decisions that have paused enforcement of similar bans in other states.
“Coming on top of the effort last year to classify providing medically necessary and scientifically proven care to transgender youth as child abuse and threatening to tear Texas families with transgender children apart, an effort currently blocked in state court, Texas lawmakers have seen fit to double down,” the organization said.
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The organization lamented Texas’ move to join a growing number of states banning transgender care for minors, noting “the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care as appropriate and necessary.”
“Transgender youth in Texas deserve the support and care necessary to give them the same chance to thrive as their peers,” the ACLU said. “We will defend the rights of transgender youth in court, just as we have done in other states engaging in this anti-science and discriminatory fear-mongering.”
Top Republicans celebrated the passage of the legislation this week, including Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont. He said the Texas House “took decisive action” by passing the measure “to prohibit medical providers from performing medically unnecessary and oftentimes irreversible procedures or therapies to a minor for the purposes of transitioning their gender.”
“In Texas, we will not tolerate bad actors taking advantage of our most vulnerable population, and we will not stand for minors being influenced to make life-altering decisions until they are of legal adult age,” Phelan said.
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Despite efforts by Democrats to stop the bill, the House approved it Monday, after a committee added a provision to allow, and require, patients who are on puberty blockers or hormone treatments by June 1 to be weaned off their medications over a safe and medically appropriate period. The provision only applies to patients who attended 12 or more therapy sessions at least six months before beginning medical treatment.
SB 14 would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming medical treatments — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy or certain surgeries — to minors experiencing gender dysphoria, a condition in which one’s gender identity does not align with one’s sex at birth. It also would ban any public money from going to physicians, hospitals or other entities that provide such treatments, and it would revoke the medical licenses of any medical professionals that do so.
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The bill would not apply to children who are intersex — biologically between the medical definitions of male and female — or who need such medication to treat premature puberty.
Major medical associations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association — support the provision of developmentally-appropriate and individualized gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, saying it can be lifesaving and medically necessary. However, Republicans and other supporters of the bill say minors should be prevented from making decisions about their medical care that could have long-term impacts or side effects.
SB 14 faced a tumultuous path to approval in the House, with Republicans trying to bring it up for debate on the House floor twice at the beginning of the month. Democrats both times managed to successfully use a procedural tactic called a “point of order” to identify minor errors in the legislation that violated House rules, delaying the debate for more than a week.
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