ACLU to file lawsuit against Texas bill banning gender-affirming care for minors

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), alongside a group of advocacy organizations, said it is preparing to file a lawsuit against the Texas bill banning gender-affirming care for minors.

The ACLU, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Texas and the Transgender Law Center have banded together to pledge to bring a lawsuit against Texas Senate Bill 14, which would prohibit health care providers from prescribing hormones and puberty blockers to minors or performing surgeries with the purpose of aiding their gender transition if signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R).

The Texas Legislature voted to pass the bill Wednesday, and it will now head to Abbott, who previously led an effort to have parents who provided their children with gender-affirming care investigated for child abuse last year.

“Coming on top of the effort last year to classify providing medically necessary and scientifically proven care to transgender youth as child abuse and threatening to tear Texas families with transgender children apart, an effort currently blocked in state court, Texas lawmakers have seen fit to double down,” the groups wrote in a statement.

“They are hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth, in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care as appropriate and necessary,” they added.

The ACLU and other LGBTQ rights groups have sued other states for similar bans on gender-affirming health care. The ACLU, its Tennessee affiliate, Lambda Legal and the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld sued the state of Tennessee last month over its bill that prohibits medical professionals from administering gender-affirming health care to transgender minors.

The ACLU also sued Indiana over its law banning all gender-affirming health care for minors, alleging that it violated patients’ rights.