In a legal fight over gender-affirming treatment for transgender babies, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and PFLAG will square off once more. Following a temporary adjournment, a prosecutor turned down Ken Paxton’s request to change over information about the LGBTQ+ advocacy group’s request for information.
It’s been two decades since Hayden Cohen, 19, graduated from high school. However, the experience and thoughts they had as a trans, non-binary teen living in Texas are nevertheless fresh.
We reside in a state that attacks transgender children frequently. Being transgender is without concern. Everyone else has a difficulty with you being transgender, which raises the issue. Numerous medical chains are closing their female clinics. Physicians are refusing to treatment for transgender children. They are left in the limbo of,” Where can I get for care that is going to be affirming?” Cohen explained.
Cohen is addressing the issue of gender-affirming treatment for trans youth, which was prohibited by SB 14 during the 2023 legislative session. For some people, this kind of care can save their lives, Cohen explained, even though they were unable to get that kind of care as a minor.
” Frequently, it really builds up when you do n’t have a way to alleviate gender dysphoria. It can lead to a lot of agony and pain. There have also been serious instances in which some individuals have attempted to commit suicide,” Cohen said. I want people to understand that kids are not the enemy. They are doing everything in their power to help the children. There is a learning curve. It’s a learning curve, yet for my own parents.
For this reason, Cohen is concerned about Paxton’s office’s most recent PFLAG purchase. The AG’s company says it became aware that some health professionals may be bribing customers with insurance as part of a plot to escape the law, and that PFLAG’s data is extremely important to its investigations.
This round of dispute, according to the Associated Press, is the result of a demand Paxton’s company made in February for “documents and communications” regarding PFLAG CEO Brian Bond’s speech to the judge last year that members were establishing contingency plans after the condition imposed a sweeping ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
PFLAG filed a complaint next Thursday as a result. A day later, Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantu Hexsel granted a temporary order against Paxton’s demand.
The prosecutor argued in component that providing the information may “harm the ability of PFLAG and its members to exercise their rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment, be protected against unreasonable searches under the Third Amendment, and produce total invasions of privacy.”
Never Texas and PFLAG have engaged in the first legal dispute. Additionally, the business is the defendant in two additional state-related claims.
Loe v. Texas challenges SB 14’s prohibition on providing transgender minors with gender-affirming treatment. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services ( DFPS) has a law that mandates investigations of kids who collaborate with medical professionals to provide this kind of attention to their transgender children, according to PFAG v. Abbott.
Due to the “volatile” and “hostile” social environment prevailing in the transgender area, a number of families of transgender kids withdrew interviews with ABC13.
Requests for comment were not returned by Paxton’s department. He stated in part in a media release from February 29 that” Texas passed SB 14 to protect children from harmful, untested medical procedures with severe lifelong outcomes for their health. Any person will be held responsible for violating this law, engaging in fraud, or using science and medicine against kids.
On March 25, the Texas Attorney General’s Office will make an oral argument in Travis County Civil District Courts challenging the momentary order.
One of the organizations that represents PFLAG in court is the ACLU, which has promised to sue for a continuous ban on Paxton’s request.
Yet when elected representatives relentlessly target trans children for political gain, they are aware of who they are and will not be silenced. The Attorney General’s Office’s most recent effort to punish organizations that support government overreach set a dangerous precedent for all Texans who support any issue, according to Brian Klosterboer, an attorney for the ACLU of Texas.
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