Attorney General Ken Paxton made false assertions, omitted key facts and relied on debunked scientific claims when he determined that providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth should constitute child abuse, according to a team of medical and legal researchers.
The authors of the report, published Monday, include seven researchers from Yale University, Yale Law School and the University of Texas Southwestern.
Paxton issued the opinion in February, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to direct the state’s child welfare agency to immediately open child abuse investigations into families who provide gender-affirming care for their children. The state has initiated at least nine probes, but they are paused amid ongoing litigation.
IMPACT: Families of trans kids are living in fear of CPS investigations, some leaving Texas altogether
“The repeated errors and omissions in the AG Opinion are so consistent and so extensive that it is difficult to believe that the opinion represents a good-faith effort to draw legal conclusions based on the best scientific evidence,” the report states. “It seems apparent that the AG opinion is, rather, motivated by bias and crafted to achieve a preordained goal: to deny gender-affirming care to transgender youth.”
The researchers found the opinion:
Falsely claimed that puberty blockers and hormone therapies are administered to children who have not reached puberty
Falsely claimed that treatments for minors include surgical sterilization.
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