Texas Doctors Face Legal Battles Over Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

A Pivotal Fight in the Lone Star State

In a groundbreaking and contentious move, Texas is taking three doctors to court, accusing them of violating the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Dr. Hector Granados, a pediatric endocrinologist in El Paso, and two other physicians in Dallas are at the center of this legal storm. The lawsuits, filed in the fall of 2023, allege that the doctors continued to provide care such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transgender youth despite the state’s prohibition. If found guilty, the doctors could face steep fines and the revocation of their medical licenses. Granados denies the allegations, stating that he meticulously complied with the ban by halting gender-affirming treatments before it took effect in 2023. He claims he is unsure which specific patients he is accused of wrongfully treating, as their identities are not disclosed in the lawsuit.

The Human Cost of the Ban

The legal battles unfold against a backdrop of growing Republican efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors. In Texas, the ban has already had a profound impact on families and patients. Emiliana Edwards, an 18-year-old transgender woman who was once a patient of Dr. Granados, recalls how her care abruptly stopped after the ban was enacted. “It felt like we couldn’t talk about anything really, even the most simple stuff,” she said, describing the tension in the room during her final appointment. Her mother, Lorena Edwards, added, “It was just: ‘I don’t provide that care anymore.’ And it was done.” Now, Emiliana has turned to neighboring New Mexico, where gender-affirming care remains legal, but the emotional toll of the attacks on her community is evident.

The Broader National Debate

Texas’ lawsuits mark the first time a state has taken legal action to enforce bans on gender-affirming care for minors, a issue that has become a flashpoint in the national debate over transgender rights. Twenty-seven states have enacted such bans, with Kansas joining the list in April 2024 after Republican lawmakers overrode the Democratic governor’s veto. President Donald Trump has also waded into the fray, signing an executive order that would bar federal funding for gender-affirming care for individuals under 19. While some states have criminalized violations of these bans, Texas is unique in pursuing civil lawsuits against doctors.

Doctors Under Fire

The accused physicians, including Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper in Dallas, face significant professional repercussions. Both are currently under court orders that restrict them to practicing medicine in research and academic settings, barring them from seeing patients. Granados, meanwhile, continues to practice in El Paso but has halted all gender-affirming care. He emphasizes that his prescriptions for hormones like testosterone are now limited to treating endocrine disorders, such as early puberty or hormone deficiencies, not for gender transition. “It was not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does,” Granados said of his prior work with transgender youth. “It was just taking care of children who required that specific therapy.”

A Political and Cultural Clash

The lawsuits are part of a broader effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, to enforce the ban aggressively. Paxton has vowed to “prevent any doctor from providing these dangerous drugs to kids,” framing the issue as a matter of protecting vulnerable children from what he and other conservatives describe as a “radical” ideology about gender. Supporters of the bans argue that they safeguard minors from making irreversible medical decisions, while critics contend that such laws undermine the rights and well-being of transgender youth. Advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, have denounced the Texas lawsuits as part of a pattern of extremism that even other conservative states have hesitated to mimic.

The Road Ahead

As the legal battles unfold, the stakes are high not only for the doctors involved but also for transgender Americans across the country. The cases are set to test the limits of state authority over medical practice and the rights of physicians to provide care they deem necessary. For Dr. Granados, the trial is scheduled for late October 2024, while dates for Lau and Cooper have yet to be set. Whatever the outcome, the lawsuits have already sent a chilling message to healthcare providers, many of whom are reevaluating their transgender health programs amid the growing risk of litigation and loss of funding. For families like the Edwards, the fight is deeply personal. “We’re normal people, too, and we’re just trying to live,” Emiliana said, her voice reflecting the resilience and determination of a community under siege.