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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Thursday, accusing Dallas-based Dr. May C. Lau, MD, of violating state law by providing gender-affirming healthcare to minors. The lawsuit marks the first time an attorney general has sued an individual doctor for allegedly violating a state restriction on gender-affirming care for minors, according to NBC News. (Teen Vogue has reached out to both Lau and representatives of her employer at the UT Southwestern Medical Center for comment but has not heard back.)
Paxton, a Republican who has been embroiled in a number of professional scandals, alleged in the lawsuit that the doctor, a physician who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to minors in Texas and “must be held accountable for her use, on at least 21 minor patients, of these illegal, dangerous, and experimental medical procedures for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identities are inconsistent with their biological sex.”
The suit follows Texas’ enactment of SB 14 in 2023, a law that prohibits doctors from "putting the health and safety of minors at risk by prescribing testosterone, a controlled substance, to biological female minors for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex.” Essentially, doctors are banned from prescribing hormone therapy and “puberty blocking drugs” to minors and mandates that medical professionals are denied issue or renewal of their licenses or revoked if they provide that gender-affirming 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.”
Many major medical organizations in the U.S., and many global authorities, disagree with Paxton’s position on gender-affirming care. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the country’s leading authority on children’s health, recognizes the kind of care that Paxton disputes in his lawsuit as integral to promoting the health and wellbeing of children. The organization advocates for “comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space” for all trans and gender diverse youth.
The lawsuit also alleges that Lau was “falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to represent that her testosterone prescriptions are for something other than transitioning a child’s biological sex or affirming a child’s belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex” while SB 14 was in effect.
Paxton has an extensive track record of targeting transgender people’s healthcare and rights more broadly. Paxton has attempted to seize transgender patients’ private treatment records from a Seattle children’s hospital, investigated the manufacture of puberty blockers, his office has sought state data on transgender Texans, and brought a federal lawsuit against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for their workplace guidance related to protections for transgender employees. Paxton has also previously issued an opinion stating that gender-affirming care is child abuse.
