Texas Supreme Court allows state gender-affirming care ban to take effect

Texas’s Supreme Court will allow a new state law banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors to take effect Friday, denying a motion to block the state’s enforcement of the ban while a legal battle over its constitutionality is ongoing.

Texas District Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel this month temporarily halted the state’s ban on gender-affirming health care for minors that was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in June. She wrote in the Aug. 25 ruling that the ban likely violates the Texas Constitution by infringing on the right of parents to make health care decisions on behalf of their children and by discriminating against transgender young people because of their sex and transgender status.

The law, Senate Bill 14, also violates the ability of health care providers to follow “well-established, evidence-based” medical guidelines under threat of losing their license, Cantú Hexsel wrote. Gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and adults is considered safe, effective and medically necessary by every major medical association.

In response, the state’s attorney general’s office filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court, automatically pausing Cantú Hexsel’s injunction and allowing the law to take effect Sept. 1, unless the Supreme Court decided to keep the injunction in place.

Thursday’s order from the all-Republican state Supreme Court lifting Cantú Hexsel’s injunction did not offer an explanation for the decision.

Legal advocates who brought the challenge to Senate Bill 14 called the court’s decision “cruel” and one that will place transgender youths, their families and their doctors “directly in harm’s way.”

“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,” the groups said Thursday in a joint statement, referring to Cantú Hexsel’s initial injunction.

“Inexplicably, the Texas Supreme Court disagreed, and transgender Texas youth and their families are forced to confront the start of the school year fearful of what awaits them,” the groups said. They added that the fight to overturn the law “is far from over.”

Including Texas, 23 states have passed laws that prevent health care providers from administering gender-affirming health care to transgender minors; of those states, 20 have done so this year. Roughly 35 percent of the nation’s transgender youth currently live in states that have restricted their access to care, according to the Human Rights Campaign.