Texas Supreme Court Orders Child Sex Change Ban to Enter Into Force

A general view of the Texas state flag during an event in San Antonio, Texas, on March 30, 2023. (Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)

The Texas Supreme Court issued an order on Thursday denying an emergency request to block a law that bans transgender procedures for children, allowing the ban to take effect.

In an order filed on Aug. 31, judges at the Supreme Court of Texas denied an emergency motion brought by a coalition of legal advocates—including Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Transgender Law Center—who wanted to prevent the transgender procedure ban from entering into force and therefore restricting what they call “gender-affirming care” in the Lone Star state.

The groups that sought to block the transgender procedure ban from becoming law called Thursday’s ruling “cruel” while supporters said that “Texas kids are safer today.”

Legal Battle

The law, called SB 14 (pdf) prohibits doctors from performing certain gender transition procedures—including castration, mastectomy, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy—for children. It also restricts the use of public funds for transgender procedures.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the transgender procedure for minors ban in June, putting the measure on track to enter into force on Sept. 1, but the groups sued to block it.

The case was filed on July 12 (pdf) on behalf of five Texas families with transgender children or adolescents, who accused the State of Texas and others of blocking “access to safe, effective, and medically necessary treatment” for children suffering from gender dysphoria and preventing them from living “as their true selves.”

The groups claimed the ban violates the right to parental autonomy guaranteed by the Due Course of Law Clause of the Texas Constitution, discriminates against parents in the exercise of their right to make medical decisions for their children, and infringes on Texas physicians’ right of occupational freedom.

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The case was filed at the District Court of Travis County, Texas, which held an evidentiary hearing in mid-August before issuing a temporary injunction on Aug. 25 (pdf) on grounds that it’s unconstitutional.

Judges wrote in the injunction that the transgender procedure ban likely violates Article I, Section 19 of the Texas Constitution “by infringing upon the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

They also said in the injunction that SB 14 violates other sections of the Texas Constitution by infringing on Texas physicians’ right to occupational freedom and by discriminating against transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria.

‘Mutilative’ Gender Transition Procedures

Texas state authorities immediately appealed the injunction by filing a notice of accelerated interlocutory appeal (pdf), with the Texas Attorney General’s office arguing that SB 14 prevented harmful procedures and protected children.

Calling SB 14 “a law that prohibits hospitals from administering experimental hormones or conducting mutilative ‘gender transition’ surgical procedures on minors,” the Texas AG’s office said in a statement that these “unproven medical interventions are emphatically pushed by some activists in the medical and psychiatric professions despite the lack of evidence demonstrating medical benefit, and even while growing evidence indicates harmful effects on children’s mental and physical welfare.”

And on Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the AG’s office, allowing the transgender procedure ban for minors to go into effect on Sept. 1, as planned.

Conservatives praised the decision, with Jonathan Covey, policy director of Texas Values, a conservative group that supported the law, saying in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times that “Texas kids are safer today” because of the ruling.

“Protecting children from harmful and dangerous gender transition surgeries and puberty blockers is in the best interests of the child and something we all agree on,” Mr. Covey said.

By contrast, the legal advocates who brought the lawsuit seeking to block SB 14 issued a joint statement denouncing the high court’s decision.

“Today’s cruel ruling places Texas’ transgender youth, and the families and medical professionals who love and care for them, directly in harm’s way,” the groups wrote.

“The district court heard two days of testimony, weighed the evidence, and made a reasoned and thoughtful determination that the ban likely violated the Texas Constitution, and thus should be delayed while the full case plays out in court,” they continued.

The groups vowed to continue pressing their case, saying that “the fight is far from over” and that they “look forward to continuing this fight.”

More than 20 states have adopted laws to ban some transgender procedures for minors, although some are not yet in effect.

Also, about a half-dozen federal courts have blocked bans on so-called “gender-affirming care” for children, which proponents argue is “medically necessary” to lower the likelihood that people suffering from gender dysphoria will commit suicide.

Opponents have pushed back on the claim that transgender procedures reduce suicidality, with a research review in March that purports to be the first ever to evaluate mental health outcomes solely from the standpoint of likelihood of suicide finding that the results are inconclusive.

That’s in part because most of the underlying research failed to control for the time elapsed after transgender procedures, with the researchers suggesting that people who get such procedures may be subject to an initial “honeymoon period” that evaporates over time as they revert to similar levels of suicidal ideation as before.

“There may be implications for the informed-consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed,” the study authors wrote.