Transgender Texans

Featured coverage

What is gender-affirming medical care for transgender children? Here’s what you need to know.

By Izz Scott LaMagdeleine Updated: March 4, 2022

Gender-affirming care, which leading health care organizations in Texas say is the best way to provide care to transgender children, is emerging as a top target of state Republicans and lies at the heart of brewing political and legal battles. Full Story 

Latest coverage

• Watch: With a “feeling of betrayal,” one family flees Texas in search of safer climate for their transgender daughter

  By Olivia Yarvis Aug. 22, 2022

  Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who provide their children with gender-affirming care, driving one such family to leave home. Full Story 

• North Texas superintendent orders books removed from schools, targeting titles about transgender people

  By Jeremy Schwartz, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, and Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News March 23, 2022

  The Granbury superintendent’s comments, made on a leaked recording, raise constitutional concerns, legal experts said. Full Story 

• Texas health providers are suspending gender-affirming care for teens in response to GOP efforts

  By Sneha Dey March 22, 2022

  Hospitals across the state have already started restricting critical treatment as health care providers fear legal consequences and worry they could lose their medical licenses. Meanwhile, teenagers are already leaving the state to get care or avoiding medical care altogether. Full Story 

• Attorney General Ken Paxton asks Texas Supreme Court to let investigations into transgender families continue

  By Emily Hernandez and Eleanor Klibanoff Updated: March 23, 2022

  The temporary injunction was issued as part of a lawsuit brought on behalf of parents being investigated by child welfare workers for letting their transgender teenager access gender-affirming health care. Full Story 

• After accepting her trans son’s hard-fought identity, a Texas mother is being investigated for child abuse

  By Eleanor Klibanoff March 18, 2022

  It took him three years to come out to his mother as trans. Now, under a new directive from the governor, the state is investigating whether she pressured him to transition. Full Story 

• Ken Paxton, lawyers for parents of trans kids disagree on whether child abuse investigations can continue

  By Eleanor Klibanoff Updated: March 15, 2022

  Paxton tweeted Friday that investigations into parents of transgender children would continue as a result of his appeal. But the state’s child welfare agency won’t confirm the status of the investigations. Full Story 

• His public custody battle helped ignite a movement against transgender health care for kids. Will it carry him to the Texas House?

  By Karen Brooks Harper March 14, 2022

  Jeff Younger sees himself as the “tip of the spear” in an effort that led the state to investigate parents of transgender children for child abuse. Full Story 

• The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

• Political pressure led to shutdown of Texas’ largest gender-affirming care program

  By Orion Rummler, The 19th March 11, 2022

  Hospital administrators and doctors at GENECIS struggled to reconcile halting care with the knowledge that doing so could severely jeopardize patients’ mental health, recordings of internal meetings show. Full Story 

• TribCast: Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigates the families of trans children

  By Matthew Watkins and Justin Dehn March 11, 2022

  In this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Eleanor and Sneha about Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to open child abuse investigations into families providing gender-affirming care for their children. Full Story 

• Texas’ child welfare agency ordered to investigate trans kids’ families has been in crisis for years

  By Eleanor Klibanoff and Reese Oxner Updated: March 11, 2022

  The Department of Family and Protective Services has been under federal court monitoring for over a decade for violating the civil rights of kids in foster care. Now, the short-staffed agency has to investigate parents who provide their children with gender-affirming care. Full Story 

• Judge temporarily blocks Texas investigations into families of trans kids

  By Eleanor Klibanoff and Sneha Dey Updated: March 11, 2022

  District Judge Amy Clark Meachum said the governor’s directive for the state child welfare agency to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their children was “beyond the scope of his authority and unconstitutional.” The statewide injunction will remain in effect until the case is heard in July. Full Story 

• The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

• Apple, Google among dozens of corporations condemning Texas’ order to investigate families of trans kids

  By James Barragán March 11, 2022

  The letter, published as a full-page ad in The Dallas Morning News, was also signed by Salesforce, Johnson & Johnson, Dow and Capital One. The companies said they do business, create jobs and serve customers in Texas and are committed to creating safe communities for LGBTQ people. Full Story 

• Analysis: Texas officials bully transgender kids for political points

  By Ross Ramsey March 11, 2022

  Lucky for them, Texas officials probably can’t be prosecuted for bullying under the state’s education laws. The gist of those laws, however, is crystal clear, and so is the effect of their actions and rhetoric about gender-affirming health care. Full Story 

• Texas sues to prevent losing federal funds over its investigations of trans children’s families

  By Brooke Park March 9, 2022

  Texas is worried it could lose over a billion dollars in federal funding over Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive requiring medical professionals to report gender-affirming care for minors as child abuse. Full Story 

• Fighting care for transgender kids shifts from a fringe issue to a litmus test for Texas Republicans

  By Patrick Svitek March 9, 2022

  The issue is no longer contained to just the party’s fringes — and it is unlikely to go away any time soon as the national fervor grows, Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive faces legal challenges and it factors prominently into a slew of GOP primary runoffs. Full Story 

• The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

• Court upholds order stopping child abuse investigation into Texas trans teen’s family

  By Eleanor Klibanoff Updated: March 9, 2022

  The appeals court’s decision allows a lower court to hold a hearing on whether Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to investigate certain gender-affirming care as child abuse can stand. Full Story 

• Parents of a trans child who reached out to Attorney General Ken Paxton over dinner are now under investigation for child abuse

  By Eleanor Klibanoff March 8, 2022

  Amber Briggle had hoped inviting Paxton to dinner might soften his views about transgender children. Now, the family is under investigation after he issued an opinion equating gender-affirming medical care with child abuse. Full Story 

• Houston hospital pauses hormone therapy for transgender children as threats of child abuse investigations loom

  By Sneha Dey March 4, 2022

  Citing potential criminal penalties, Texas Children’s Hospital will no longer provide hormone therapy to transgender patients. Full Story 

• As Texas targets trans kids, their families scramble to find lawyers

  By Eleanor Klibanoff and Sneha Dey March 4, 2022

  Ever since Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their children, LGBTQ-affirming family lawyers statewide have been deluged with calls. Full Story 

• The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

• Attorney General Ken Paxton appeals restraining order that blocked state agency from investigating trans teen’s family

  By Eleanor Klibanoff and Brooke Park Updated: March 2, 2022

  A Texas judge was scheduled to consider a statewide injunction on investigations of parents over obtaining gender-affirming care. The appeal now puts the hearing on hold. Full Story 

• Texas investigates parents of transgender teen, prompting the ACLU to sue

  By Sneha Dey March 1, 2022

  The ACLU suit looks to block Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigate parents seeking gender-affirming care for their transgender children. Full Story 

• Transgender Texas kids are terrified after governor orders that parents be investigated for child abuse

  By Sneha Dey and Karen Brooks Harper Updated: Feb. 28, 2022

  Some experts doubt that classifying gender-affirming care as child abuse would hold up in court, but families still feel targeted by Gov. Greg Abbott’s new order Full Story