(Texas Scorecard) – Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Dr. May C. Lau for violating Texas’ law protecting children from gender mutilation procedures.
Lau, the medical director of the Adolescent and Young Adult clinic at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, is also an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The suit accuses Lau of “putting the health and safety of minors at risk by prescribing testosterone, a controlled substance, to biological female minors for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex” in violation of Texas law.
Senate Bill 14 took effect in September 2023. It prohibits gender mutilation procedures, including surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones for minors.
It also directs that the Texas Medical Board “shall revoke the medical license or other authorization to practice medicine of a physician who violates” the provisions of SB 14.
According to Paxton’s filing, Lau illegally provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to at least 21 minor patients for the direct purpose of “transitioning” the child from his or her biological sex. She also allegedly used false diagnoses and billing codes to mask her unlawful prescriptions.
She reportedly directed several patients who were biological females to fill prescriptions for testosterone after SB 14 took effect and continued writing scripts for testosterone after the law went into effect.
According to the lawsuit:
Lau cannot circumvent SB 14 by writing prescriptions to her patients prior to the SB 14 taking effect with orders to fill or refill the prescriptions after it takes effect… because a ‘prescription’ order is not a singular discrete act, but a continuing act of treatment that begins with the prescription being written and continues through the pharmacist filling the prescription and the drug being used as directed by the patient, or until the written prescription expires or is canceled, and alternatively, because by issuing prescriptions with orders to fill them after the effective date of SB 14 Lau is ‘providing’ the prescribed medication to the patient at the time they fill and use the prescription as directed, which they could not do otherwise without the prescription.
Lau has a history of supporting gender mutilation procedures, having written extensively on the subject. She was also previously associated with the Gender Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) Program, which provided gender mutilation services to minors until it was dissolved.
“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” said Paxton. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Neither UT Southwestern nor Children’s Medical Center responded to Texas Scorecard’s request for comment before publication.