Top Texas Court Allows Abuse Inquiries of Parents of Transgender Children

Source: New York Times

HOUSTON — The Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse could continue, after an emergency appeal by state officials including Gov. Greg Abbott. The ruling reversed an appeals court decision that had temporarily halted the inquiries statewide. But the court said that officials could not resume the investigation into the plaintiffs that had brought the lawsuit, a family and a doctor, acknowledging that the inquiry would cause “irreparable harm” and leaving in place the injunction as their case proceeds to trial.

In its 12-page opinion, the court found that the appeals court had “abused its discretion” in issuing a statewide order at this point the legal process. The investigations began in February after Mr. Abbott ordered state officials to consider certain medically accepted treatments for transgender youth to be abuse, including hormones or puberty-suppressing drugs. The ruling on Friday came in response to a legal challenge brought by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl. The family was among the first to be investigated by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services under Mr. Abbott’s order. Several other investigations have since come to light.

In March, a district judge, Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, ordered all such investigations to stop, pending a trial. She found that the governor’s order had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution. An appeals court allowed the temporary injunction to remain in place. Mr. Abbott, along with the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, brought the case to the Texas Supreme Court, arguing that the investigations, on their own, were not an “injury” and that the district court had overstepped its authority in preventing them. All nine members of the state’s highest court are Republican; five were appointed by Mr. Abbott.

The court found that Mr. Abbott and Mr. Paxton could not in fact require certain kinds of investigations by the Department of Family and Protective Services, finding that the agency had discretion over how it conducts its abuse inquiries. “Neither the Governor nor the Attorney General has statutory authority to directly control” the department’s investigatory decisions, wrote Justice Jimmy Blacklock, who was appointed by Mr. Abbott in 2018. “Just as the governor lacks authority to issue a binding ‘directive’ to DFPS, the court of appeals lacks authority to afford statewide relief to nonparties,” wrote Justice Blacklock.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/us/texas-supreme-court-abuse-transgender-children.html