The appeals court upheld the temporary injunction against the Family Services department and its commissioner but overturned the parts against the governor.
A Texas court of appeals upheld a lower court’s order on Friday, allowing families who allow minors to access procedures that alter the appearance or function of their sexual organs to go on unimpeded by the Department of Family and Protective Services.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in February 2022 signed a directive ordering the department to investigate Texan parents who allow their gender dysphoric children to receive such procedures, like surgery and chemical drugs.
But his administration met with pushback from LGBT families and advocacy groups when the directive was challenged and a temporary injunction was issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum of Texas’s 201st District Court in Travis County in March 2022.
In a challenge lodged in the 3rd circuit appeals court, the state attorney general’s office argued that child abuse investigations of parents who support such treatments could continue under the state law in question as the appeals courts determine the constitutionality of the directive.
A year later, the appellate judges on March 29 upheld the Abbott v. Doe temporary injunction against the department and its commissioner, Stephanie Muth, freezing them from any further investigations (pdf).
However, it reversed all parts of the order asserted against the governor for a lack of standing over who has the “statutory authority to control [Department] investigatory decisions,” citing an earlier ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that the governor and attorney general are “free to share their legal and policy views,” and that the department “was not compelled by law to follow them.”
Mr. Abbott’s February 2022 directive to the Department of Family and Protective Services to conduct a review of the medical procedures came shortly after his attorney general, Ken Paxton, noted that the sex-related procedures for children “can legally constitute child abuse under several provisions of chapter 261 of the Texas Family Code.”
After the directive was announced, one hospital in Dallas stopped providing such procedures to minors, and the Texas Children’s Hospital said it would also end access to hormone replacement therapy for minors.
By Melanie Sun
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