LGBTQ group sues to block records request
An LGBTQ advocacy group is suing the Texas attorney general after his agency requested information that the group said would reveal the identities of its members, including those who sought to stay anonymous in recent suits.
The suit, filed Wednesday by PFLAG, argued that the requests violate its members’ right to free speech, to petition and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The group accused Attorney General Ken Paxton of targeting people who have fought new anti-transgender laws in recent cases against the state.
Members of the group have previously sued the state over a new law that bans common medical treatments for transgender youth, as well as transition surgeries, which are rare. Their challenge against the ban, known as SB 14, is pending before the Texas Supreme Court.
The plaintiffs in that case include five families who used pseudonyms to protect their identities.
In the new suit, PFLAG asked a judge to block the request. If not, the group asked the judge to extend the deadline and refine its scope.
“The attorney general’s demand of PFLAG National is just another attempt to scare Texas families with transgender adolescents into abandoning their rights and smacks of retaliation against PFLAG National for standing up for those families against the state’s persecution,” said Karen Loewy, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, which is helping represent PFLAG in the suit. “We will fight to protect them.”
Paxton said Thursday that the request was part of an investigation into whether medical providers are breaking any laws to help patients to circumvent the new ban, including by committing insurance fraud.
“Texas passed SB 14 to protect children from damaging, unproven medical interventions with catastrophic lifelong consequences for their health,” Paxton said in a statement. “Any organization seeking to violate this law, commit fraud, or weaponize science and medicine against children will be held accountable.”
But Paxton’s request, sent Feb. 9, asked for information and sworn statements as part of an investigation into whether the group violated the state’s deceptive trade practices law. It gave them 20 days to respond.
The request focused on information that may show how Texans are accessing transition care after the ban.
For example, in a sworn statement tied to a suit challenging the ban, PFLAG CEO Brian Bond had said that members’ families have been asking the group for “alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.” The AG’S office requested all documents, meeting minutes and communications pertaining to Bond’s affidavit.
It also asked for any communications with a group of hospitals and clinics in and outside of Texas.
The list includes providers who were issued similar demands from Paxton last year that became public after one of them, Seattle Children’s Hospital, sued to block the request in a case that’s still pending.
The Houston Chronicle reported last month that Queermed, a Georgia-based telehealth clinic, had also received a demand.
Both were among the list of entities whose communications Texas requested from PFLAG. The others were Texas Children’s Hospital; Baylor College of Medicine; Queerdoc and Plume Health, both telehealth clinics that provide gender transition care.
Bond also mentioned that families had asked his group for help figuring out their “contingency plans” after the ban.
Families were looking for providers “in the event that their primary providers stop providing gender-affirming care or leave the state as a result of SB 14 (Texas’ transition care ban),” Bond said in his affidavit.
The state asked PFLAG for a list of all such providers and any recommendations or referrals the group has made.
Separately, PFLAG has also sued the state over a policy allowing child welfare officials to investigate parents of transgender youth as potential abusers if they allow their children access to transition care. That policy is blocked while an appeals court considers the case.