Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas doctor on Thursday, alleging that she violated state law by providing gender-affirming treatments to minors. The suit marks the first time an attorney general has brought a legal challenge against an individual doctor for allegedly violating a state restriction on gender-affirming care for minors.
Paxton, a Republican, alleged that Dr. May Chi Lau, an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a physician who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors from October 2023 to August of this year for the “purposes of transitioning” their gender, according to the suit.
In 2023, Texas enacted SB 14, a law that bars minors from obtaining hormone therapy and puberty blockers and mandates that medical professionals will have their licenses revoked if they provide that care to trans minors.
“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Paxton alleges that Lau is a “radical gender activist” because of her research background and practice working with transgender and gender-nonconforming youth. In the suit, he wrote that Lau used “false diagnoses and billing codes on transgender patients” to write prescriptions for puberty blockers and testosterone for patients who filled or refilled them after SB 14 took effect.
Over 30 major medical associations have deemed this care medically necessary and “lifesaving” for transgender youth.
Neither Lau nor her employer, UT Southwestern, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Under state law, Lau’s medical license could be revoked and she could face a penalty of hundreds of thousands of dollars if she is found to be in violation of the law.
Paxton has a long history of using his power as attorney general to target transgender people’s access to gender-affirming health care. Over the last several years, Paxton has subpoenaed hospitals in Texas and beyond for medical records of trans youth, investigated pharmaceutical companies that manufacture puberty blockers and sought data on the number of Texans who changed their gender on their state driver’s licenses.
Two years ago, he also issued an opinion in which he concluded that gender-affirming treatments for children constituted “child abuse” under state law.
This summer, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban after a legal challenge on the constitutionality of the ban and pleas from parents of trans youth and from medical professionals to reject it.
The legality of these bans hinges on the outcome of a pending Supreme Court case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, which will determine whether a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The justices are expected to issue an opinion next year.
