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AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) — A Texas judge held a hearing on whether to prevent state officials from investigating reports of transgender youth receiving gender-confirming care as child abuse.
The hearing came the same day that dozens of major companies – including Apple, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, and Microsoft – criticized the Texas directive in a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News.
“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” read the ad, which used the headline “DISCRIMINATION IS BAD FOR BUSINESS.”
District Judge Amy Clark Meachum heard Friday from attorneys for the state and the parents of a 16-year-old girl investigated by the Department of Family and Protective Services over such care.
Meachum last week blocked the investigation and is considering whether to block similar investigations of other families. The parents sued over the investigation and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive that DFPS investigate reports of transgender youth receiving gender-confirming care as child abuse.
The lawsuit marked the first report of parents being investigated following Abbott’s directive and an earlier nonbinding legal opinion by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton labeling specific gender-confirming treatments as “child abuse.”
DFPS said it has opened nine investigations since Abbott’s directive and Paxton’s opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal sued on behalf of the parents.
The groups also represent a clinical psychologist who has said the governor’s directive is forcing her to choose between reporting clients to the state or losing her license and other penalties.
Courtney Carpenter spoke to the parent of a local transgender child who says these past couple of weeks have been extremely difficult since the directive was issued.
She did not want to be identified out of fear surrounding this situation. The parent will be referred to as Jane Doe in this article.
“Our child being trans is not the center of our world. We’ve tried not to make it the center of her world. It’s just a footnote. But right now, it is front and center, and that is affecting her, and it’s affecting us as a family,” Doe explained.
During the hearing, a CPS worker testified that she resigned due to her disagreeing with the directive, saying she feels it is unethical.
Also, Friday, Dr. Megan Mooney, a psychologist based in Houston who works with transgender youth, took the stand, calling the directive “very upsetting” and saying she is concerned for families.
Doe, a seventh-generation Texan, is now considering a move for her family.
“I have said from the beginning. We are going to fight this. But, in the last week, we have started to second guess that, and I could name 10 families that are moving immediately. As soon as possible,” Doe explained.
Friday’s ruling is a welcome relief, but not the end. Doe said, “This will be a pause as in we won’t worry that CPS will show up at our door, but we know that this is just the beginning.”
The governor’s directive and Paxton’s opinion go against the nation’s largest medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which have opposed Republican-backed restrictions on transgender people filed in statehouses.