Texas Attorney General Sues Pediatrician Over Gender Transition Treatments
On Thursday, Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas initiated a lawsuit against Dr. May C. Lau, a pediatrician based in Dallas, accusing her of unlawfully administering gender transition treatments to minors, in violation of a recently enacted state law. This legal action marks the first enforcement effort under the new legislation aimed at regulating gender-affirming care for minors.
Dr. Lau serves as an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, a prominent state educational and medical research institution. In addition to her academic role, she treats young patients at Children’s Health in Dallas, which has affiliations with UT Southwestern. Notably, Dr. Lau previously worked at a clinic specializing in transgender adolescents that was forced to close in 2021 due to mounting pressure from Texas state officials.
As of now, neither Dr. Lau nor UT Southwestern Medical Center has responded to requests for comment regarding the lawsuit. However, Children’s Health released a statement confirming its commitment to comply with all state healthcare regulations, asserting, “Our top priority is the health and well-being of our patients.”
Texas stands among 26 states that have instituted partial or complete bans on youth gender-transition care since 2021. A representative from the A.C.L.U. indicated that she was not aware of any other states that had undertaken similar enforcement actions. Furthermore, the Texas law was upheld as constitutional by the Texas Supreme Court in June.
The legislation prohibits healthcare providers from “affirming the child’s perception of their sex if that perception contradicts the child’s biological sex.” Physicians who administer puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender transition purposes risk having their medical licenses revoked. However, they may still provide these treatments for other medical reasons, such as precocious or delayed puberty.
The lawsuit claims that the state will demonstrate that Dr. Lau provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors between October 2023 and August by “falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing documentation to misrepresent her testosterone prescriptions as something other than treatment for transitioning a child’s biological sex or affirming a child’s belief in a gender identity that differs from their biological sex.”
The lawsuit characterized Dr. Lau as a “scofflaw” who is jeopardizing the health and safety of vulnerable minors. The Attorney General is seeking an injunction against Dr. Lau, along with a financial judgment of $10,000 for each alleged violation.
In response, Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the A.C.L.U., expressed concern about the implications of such legal actions, stating that doctors should not face government retaliation when exercising their professional medical judgment. “The U.S. Supreme Court will soon review a case involving families challenging another state ban, and we hope the justices will recognize this overreach for what it truly is,” Mr. Seldin commented.
This term, the Supreme Court is expected to consider a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee that prohibits certain medical treatments for transgender minors. However, the court has yet to schedule arguments for the Tennessee case.
Azeen Ghorayshi and Edgar Sandoval contributed to this report.