Houston, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent demand for PFLAG National to disclose the identities of its transgender members has sparked controversy and legal action. In a legal filing on Thursday, PFLAG National moved to block Paxton’s demand, arguing that it constitutes retaliation for the organization’s opposition to anti-transgender legislation in the state.
The demand, issued on Feb. 5 in retaliation to claims made by PFLAG CEO Brian Bond against the states gender affirming care ban stating the organization represents 1500 individuals in the state, requires PFLAG National to provide extensive identifying information about its Texas transgender members, full names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, places of employment, home addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. Additionally, Paxton’s demand seeks information about the organization’s contingency plans for navigating anti-transgender legislation in Texas.
The requests also extends its grasp to healthcare organizations outside of Texas, such as QMed in Georgia, the Children’s Hospital in Seattle, and Plume Health based in Denver. These demands aim to gather information on all patients from Texas who have crossed state lines to undergo gender-affirming care. In response, Seattle Children’s Hospital has legally argued that the care provided and conducted entirely within the state of Washington, falls beyond the jurisdiction of Texas. Furthermore, Washington state law includes a shield provision preventing the sharing of protected private information concerning transgender and abortion care with out-of-state entities. This legal dispute remains ongoing.
According to PFLAG National, the demands are an unjustified intrusion into the privacy of its members and violate their rights to freedom of speech and association. They allege that Paxton’s actions are part of a broader pattern of seeking identifying information about transgender individuals in Texas, including a previous attempt to compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on Texas driver’s licenses. Mandy Giles, founder of Parents of Trans Youth and former PFLAG Houston president, described Paxton’s actions as retaliation against vulnerable transgender families in the state. She states,
Paxton would retaliate against PFLAG… the families can’t defend themselves. They are too scared to be visible. They can’t fight back, they can’t fight for their kids, they can’t fight for themselves, or their trans loved ones.
This is the families worst fear… that something that was offered to them for protection could come back and hurt them…. the nerve of Paxton asking for families escape plans when he was the reason they were escaping.”
Sadie Hernandez, communications manager for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, highlighted the disproportionate impact of Paxton’s enforcement efforts on marginalized communities within the transgender community, such as undocumented immigrants. Highlighting the fact that transgender immigrants and undocumented trans individuals in border checkpoints cannot leave that area, much less the state for healthcare. She also drew parallels between Paxton’s targeting of transgender people and the state’s attacks on reproductive healthcare and bodily autonomy.
Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Karen Loewy condemned Paxton’s demand as an attempt to intimidate Texas families with transgender adolescents and vowed to protect PFLAG members’ rights to mutual support and community. PFLAG National is represented in the case by Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, The Transgender Law Center, and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.
In response to the lawsuit, several funds supporting transgender individuals in Texas were highlighted, including the Frontera Fund, Fund Texas Choice, TEA Fund, Avow, and Lilith Fund. These funds provide crucial support to marginalized transgender communities facing barriers to accessing gender-affirming care and resources.
As the legal battle continues, PFLAG National and its allies remain committed to defending the rights and privacy of transgender individuals in Texas and beyond. Stay tuned to the Queer Press for more as the situation unfolds.
A judge has issued a temporary block on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for information regarding PFLAG National’s advocacy work on behalf of Texas families with transgender children seeking gender-affirming medical care. In response to Paxton’s latest demand, PFLAG National filed a new lawsuit against his office and sought a temporary restraining order to prevent him from accessing the information. Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel granted the order on Friday.
“It clearly appears to the Court that unless the Defendants are immediately restrained from abusing the Deceptive Trade Practices Act by enforcing or otherwise requiring PFLAG to respond to the Civil Investigative Demand and Notice of Demand for Sworn Written Statement, immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to PFLAG and its members from the Defendants’ wrongful actions,” she wrote. “Such injury includes, but is not limited to: harm to the ability of PFLAG and its members to exercise their rights of free speech and association under the First Amendment; harm to the ability of PFLAG and its members to be secure against unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment; harm to the ability of PFLAG and its members to avail themselves of the courts when their constitutional rights are threatened; and gross invasions of both PFLAG’s and its members’ privacy in an attempt to bypass discovery stays entered in both Loe v. Texas and PFLAG v. Abbott.”
Legal representatives for PFLAG issued a statement expressing gratitude for the court’s decision. “We’re grateful that the Court saw the harm the Attorney General’s Office’s intrusive demands posed for PFLAG National and its Texas members — and is protecting them from having to respond while we continue to litigate the legality of the Office’s requests. We now will return to court to seek an extended and ultimately permanent block so that PFLAG can continue supporting its Texas members with transgender youth in doing what all loving parents do: supporting and caring for their children.”
