The new Texas law banning child sex alteration procedures is heading to the Supreme Court of Texas after a district court issued an order on Friday to stop it from taking effect.
An appeal by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG) to the state’s highest judicial body superseded the lower court’s order, enabling the law to come into effect on September 1 as the Supreme Court considers the matter.
The law in question, SB 14, will prohibit various “treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment, or gender dysphoria” from being administered to or performed on individuals under the age of 18.
Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) and Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress), the medical doctors who authored the law, asserted that “gender modification treatments and procedures in minors have no scientifically -verifiable, proven benefit,” as reported by The Dallas Express.
However, the ACLU and other left-wing groups sued Texas to stop the law from coming into effect, claiming that it would “forbid parents from providing best-practice medical care for their children. And it would ban care for trans youth while allowing the same treatments for any other young person.”
District Judge María Cantú Hexsel sided with the ACLU, issuing a temporary injunction to stop the ban.
She said the law “likely violates Article I, Section 19 of the Texas Constitution by infringing upon the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”
Hexsel rejected the notion that “the Act protects the health or wellbeing of minors,” arguing instead that “the Act threatens the health and wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
Judge Hexsel has a history of supporting LGBTQ initiatives, previously hosting events at a courthouse in Austin where children were photographed on stage with people in drag.
After Hexsel’s ruling on Friday, the ACLU of Texas stated, “A Texas district court just ruled that trans youth — like all Texans — have the right to get the life-saving medical care they need.”
“No one should have to go to court to defend their right to exist,” the activist group continued. “We won’t stop until this cruel ban is permanently struck down.”
Jonathan Covey, the political director of Texas Values, reacted to the temporary restraining order, saying, “Butchers for hire are tearing kids apart and they must be stopped.”
“We applaud the Texas Attorney General’s office for their life-saving legal work and we’re certain this temporary ruling will be reversed,” he added.
In response to the district judge’s ruling to continue allowing sex alteration surgeries for minors, the OAG filed an accelerated interlocutory appeal with the Texas Supreme Court.
Texas law permits “immediate appeals from orders granting temporary injunctions,” and the Supreme Court can be appealed to directly “when a trial court grants an interlocutory injunction on the grounds of the constitutionality of a statute of this state.”
The filing “stays the ruling pending a decision by the Texas Supreme Court,” meaning that the law will go into effect on September 1, according to the OAG.
“This year, the Texas Legislature passed SB 14, a law that prohibits hospitals from administering experimental hormones or conducting mutilative ‘gender transition’ surgical procedures on minors,” the OAG said in a statement. “These unproven medical interventions are emphatically pushed by some activists in the medical and psychiatric professions despite the lack of evidence demonstrating medical benefit, and even while growing evidence indicates harmful effects on children’s mental and physical welfare.”