District attorneys in five of the largest counties in Texas on Thursday announced that they will not comply with Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) and state attorney general Ken Paxton’s (R) directive that state agencies begin investigating gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths.
The district attorneys of Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Nueces and Fort Bend counties condemned the directive in a statement issued Thursday. The group, which is comprised of five Democratic district attorneys, slammed Abbott and Paxton’s characterization of gender-affirming care for minors as “child abuse.” They declared Abbott and Paxton’s recent rhetoric is an “onslaught on personal freedoms” that is on its face “un-American.”
“We also want to be clear: we will enforce the Constitution and will not irrationally and unjustifiably interfere with medical decisions made between children, their parents, and their medical physicians,” the district attorneys wrote. “We trust the judgment of our state’s medical professionals, who dedicate themselves to providing the highest degree of care not only for our transgender youth, but for all youth in our communities.”
The group of district attorneys also assured parents that they are “safe” to continue seeking gender-affirming care for their children.
“We will not allow the Governor and Attorney General to disregard Texan children’s lives in order to score political points,” they wrote.
See here for the background. A copy of the DAs’ letter is embedded in the story. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has issued a similar statement, but his is a civil law office, not a criminal law office. I’d very much like to know where Harris County DA Kim Ogg – and every other Democratic DA in this state – is on this. As others have noted, AG opinions are non-binding, and it’s not at all clear that Abbott’s order is enforceable – remember how he himself admitted that his no-mask-mandate executive order could not be enforced? This is entirely discretionary, so take a stand. Someone in power needs to be standing up for these kids and their families.