Texas AG Ken Paxton sues doctor for illegally prescribing transgender drugs to 21 minors

 Texas General Attorney Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a physician for allegedly providing illegal transgender medical treatments to 21 minors.

In September 2023, Texas banned all forms of experimental transgender medical interventions for children. This includes surgeries, hormone replacement therapies and the use of puberty blockers. Paxton accused May Ci Lau, a medical director of the adolescent and young adult clinic at Children's Medical Center Dallas (CMCD), of violating this law by prescribing sex-change hormones to minors under false diagnoses and billing codes.

"Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous, unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects," Paxton said. "Doctors who continue to provide these harmful 'gender transition' drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Lau, an associate professor at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, has co-authored several academic papers on gender dysphoria in children and the transition from pediatric to adult care for transgender youth. These academic papers include "Transition from Pediatric to Adult Care for Transgender Youth: A Qualitative Study of Patient, Parent and Provider Perspectives; "Developing a Curriculum on Transgender Health Care for Physician Assistant Students;" and "Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy in Cystic Fibrosis: A Case of New Pseudomonas Infection."

"Adolescents have their parents to guide them during these sometimes-tough years, and as an adolescent medicine physician, Dr. Lau endeavors to assist parents in this process as adolescents and parents face the most difficult issues," her biography stated.  

However, Paxton said her practices have violated the state law.

"Evidence obtained by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that a Dallas-area doctor illegally provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of "transitioning" the child's biological sex," Paxton said in a press release. "The doctor allegedly used false diagnoses and billing codes to mask these unlawful prescriptions."

CMCD one of 225 healthcare facilities in the U.S. providing transgender treatments to minors

This allegation backed the nonprofit watchdog group Do No Harm report, which revealed that 225 hospitals and healthcare facilities across the United States have been providing sex-change surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers and other hormone therapies to minors.

"The database provides conclusive proof that these interventions are happening on children across the country, both hormonal interventions and surgeries," said Beth Serio, a registered nurse who works as an external relations manager at Do No Harm. "We used bulletproof data from insurance claims databases to show that these procedures have been done on children."

According to the Stop the Harm Database, launched by Do No Harm on Oct. 8, Children's Medical Center Dallas, where Lau works, is one of those 225 facilities, reportedly treating 49 sex-change patients and issuing 361 prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormones prior to the passage of legislation.

Moreover, the database named 12 hospitals with the highest rates of performing so-called "gender-affirming" procedures on minors. They are led by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and followed by Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Children's Minnesota, Seattle Children's, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Boston Children's Hospital, Rady Children's Hospital, Children's National Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, Children's Hospital Colorado, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.