Advocacy group sues Texas AG following order to turn over documents on trans youth

PFLAG National, a nonprofit LGBTQ advocacy group, on Wednesday asked a Texas court to block a request from the state attorney general’s office to hand over information related to its support of transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

The organization in a lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Texas district court alleges Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) instructed it in a Feb. 5 civil investigative demand to provide information related to an “investigation of actual or possible violations” to Texas’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a 1973 state law that allows victims of false, deceptive or misleading business practices to sue for damages.

The demand, according to the lawsuit, pertained to allegations of fraud “related to misrepresentations” of transition-related care, and ordered PFLAG to surrender information on members with transgender adolescents, including any “contingency plans” to obtain care for their children shared with the group.

Health care providers in Texas are prohibited from administering gender-affirming medical care to transgender minors under a state law signed in May by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The state Supreme Court in August allowed the ban to take effect after a district court judge temporarily blocked the state from enforcing it earlier that month.

The Feb. 5 demand also seeks documents and communications between “any PFLAG representative regarding, relating to, or referencing” a number of health care providers in and outside of Texas, some of whom provide or have provided gender-affirming care to transgender adolescents.

PFLAG has until March 4 to respond to the Feb. 5 demand, according to court documents.

In a statement Wednesday, Brian K. Bond, the organization’s CEO, called the demand “mean-spirited” and “petty and invasive.”

Harper Seldin, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union — one of four legal groups representing PFLAG in Wednesday’s lawsuit — said Paxton’s office was targeting the group intentionally and unconstitutionally.

“The Attorney General’s Office is attempting to use its powers to intimidate both PFLAG National as an organization and its members in direct opposition to their constitutional speech and association rights,” he said.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

PFLAG, which has 18 chapters in Texas and more than 400 nationwide, is a plaintiff in two separate lawsuits challenging restrictions on gender-affirming health care in Texas. 

One of them — PFLAG v. Abbott — challenges a 2022 Texas Department of Family and Protective Services directive mandating investigations of parents who have obtained or considered obtaining gender-affirming care for their children. The department’s rule was based on a nonbinding opinion from Paxton that equated treatments for transgender minors including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery with child abuse.

Paxton’s office is facing a similar lawsuit from Seattle Children’s Hospital, which sued the attorney general’s office in December after it sent the Washington state hospital an investigative subpoena demanding patient records of Texas residents who have received gender-affirming care.

In November, the Texas attorney general’s office issued similar demands to QueerMed, an Atlanta-based practice. QueerMed has said it stopped providing services to transgender youth from Texas after the state’s law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors was signed by Abbott.