The Texas Department of Family Protective Services, tasked by Gov. Greg Abbott with investigating transgender youth health care, is being sued by one of its own employees.
The family, identified by pseudonyms, and Houston-based clinical psychologist Dr. Megan Mooney, filed the lawsuit Tuesday against TDFPS, its commissioner Jamie Masters and Abbott in a Travis County court. They are asking the judge to issue an injunction that would prevent the agency from investigating families of transgender children, which was ordered by Abbott after a legal opinion issued by Attorney General Ken Paxton deemed that transgender medical treatment could constitute child abuse.
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After Abbott issued his directive, Jane Doe — who works for the agency, asked her supervisor how the directive would affect her family. The woman has a 16-year-old child who is undergoing medical treatment for gender dysphoria. That same day, the family’s lawyers allege, the woman was placed on leave and later informed that her family is under investigation.
“The issuance of the Paxton Opinion and the Abbott Letter, along with DFPS’s implementation of these, has terrorized the Doe family and inflicted ongoing and irreparable harm,” the lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
The legal opinion has been heavily criticized by physician groups, who say doctors already follow established standards of care when a child is afflicted with gender dysmorphia.
The directive was also heavily criticized by the district attorneys of Bexar, Travis, Fort Bend, Dallas and Nueces counties. In a joint statement, the prosecutors said they would not pursue any charges against families who have sought health care for their children, calling the directive “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 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.”