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DALLAS (CN) — In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed Thursday, the state of Texas is suing a Dallas-area physician for violating the state’s prohibition on providing cross-sex hormones to minors.
In its 35-page complaint, filed in Collin County — just north of Dallas — the state accused May C. Lau of deceiving pharmacies and insurance providers as well as falsifying records to provide prescriptions of testosterone to transgender youth. These acts, if found to be true, violate the state’s Health and Safety Code as well as the Business and Commerce Code, carrying tens of thousands of dollars in civil penalties.
The violation zeroed in on by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s complaint is Senate Bill 14. The controversial law has been on the books since last year and it bars doctors from prescribing drug therapies and surgeries to transgender minors seeking to affirm their gender identity.
In a statement announcing the filing, Paxton said that SB 14 was enacted to “protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions…” “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Lau, the doctor who now has the state pursuing these charges against her, works at Children’s Health Center Dallas as an adolescent medicine physician. Lau is also an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
When asked for comment on the filing, Children’s Health said, “Our top priority is the health and well being of our patients. Children’s Health follows and adheres to all state health care laws.”
According to her biography on the Children’s Health website, she is also a member of the Texas Pediatric Society, Texas Medical Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In the complaint, Lau is labeled a radical gender activist and an extensive record is laid out to describe the violations the state claims are being committed. The state identified 22 patients between the ages of 14 and 17 who were provided with prescriptions of testosterone. Some of the patients had received the prescriptions before Sept. 1 when SB 14 went into effect, but Lau is said to have continued providing access to the drugs throughout the remainder of last year and into the following year.
To conceal these acts, the state believes that “Lau deceptively [mislead] pharmacies, insurance providers, and/or the patients by falsifying patient medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to indicate that the use of puberty blockers for minor patients are for something other than transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex.”
An example of this was in the case of patient 22. The state says that the patient’s insurance company was falsely billed for an unspecified endocrine disorder while in actuality, the doctor used puberty blockers to aid in the patient’s transition from male to female.
The state is asking a district court judge to permanently block Lau from continuing “to engage in acts and practices declared to be unlawful.” In addition, the state is seeking civil penalties against Lau to the tune of $10,000 per violation under the Texas Business and Commerce Code.
Thursday’s filing marks the first time the state has sued a physician for violating SB 14. Since the law was enacted by Governor Greg Abbott, it has faced a high-profile legal challenge by the families of transgender children, physicians and LGBTQ+ rights organizations. That fight culminated in a decision by the Texas Supreme Court in June, finding that the Legislature had the lawful right to regulate this form of medical care and did not violate the plaintiff’s constitutional rights.
Twenty-six states, including Texas, have passed measures barring minors from receiving gender-affirming care in recent years. While Republican lawmakers have criticized gender-affirming care as harmful, the medical community has voiced broad support for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Texas Pediatric Society, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association have endorsed gender-affirming care practices for transgender youth.
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