Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office is suing an El Paso doctor for allegedly providing gender transition drugs and treatments to minors in violation of state law.
Paxton, a Republican, alleges that Dr. Hector M. Granados, who is a pediatric endocrinologist, is breaking the state’s 2023 law that prohibits the prescription of puberty blockers and other “transitioning” drugs and therapies to minors. The law was upheld in June by the Texas Supreme Court, according to KFOX-TV.
Paxton says that Dr. Granados knowingly broke the law and continued to provide minor patients with transgendering therapies. He also says that Granados has engaged in falsifying medical records to hide his activities.
“Texas is cracking down on doctors illegally prescribing dangerous ‘gender transition’ drugs to children. State law forbids prescribing these interventions to minors because they have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said while announcing his lawsuit. “Any physician found doing so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
“Medical providers who violate SB 14 are liable for penalties, and the law also directs that the Texas Medical Board ‘shall revoke the medical license or other authorization to practice medicine of a physician who violates’ the statute,” Paxton said.
The law banning transition therapies and drugs for minors was initially shot down by a state judge. But state officials appealed the ruling to the state’s highest court. At the end of August, the state Supreme Court lifted the lower court’s injunction and allowed the law to be implemented.
In the 8-1 ruling, the state’s Supreme Court rejected arguments from parents who claimed that the Texas law, which went into effect in September 2023, went against their right to decide whether or not to seek out medical care for their children.
The Supreme Court wrote that lawmakers had “made a permissible, rational policy choice.”
“We conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children,” the June ruling said, “particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine.”
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