NY Times: “The Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse could continue, after an emergency appeal by state officials including Gov. Greg Abbott. The ruling reversed lower-court decisions that had temporarily halted the inquiries statewide.
But the court said neither Mr. Abbott nor the attorney general, Ken Paxton, had the authority to order such investigations, and it left in place a lower court order halting the investigation into the plaintiffs in the suit, a family and a doctor, acknowledging that the inquiry would cause “irreparable harm.”
It was not immediately clear whether the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services would continue its other investigations into medical treatments for transgender youth, such as puberty blockers and hormones, that have become a flash point for some conservatives and Republican elected officials. The ruling also indicated that were any inquiries to resume, families could seek to halt them in court.
Mr. Paxton praised the ruling as “a win for families against the gender ideology of doctors, big pharma, clinics.”
Advocates for transgender people saw a kind of split decision. “It could have been worse,” said Andrea Segovia, the policy director for the Transgender Education Network of Texas. But, she added, “all the preparations that we were doing in February and March — so that if there is a knock on your door, you know what steps to take — that’s all still relevant.””