The suit is the first by an attorney general against an individual doctor for allegedly violating a restriction on gender-affirming care for minors.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas doctor Thursday accusing her of providing transition-related care to nearly two dozen minors in violation of state law.

Paxton alleged that Dr. May Chi Lau, who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors between October 2023 and August for the purpose of transitioning genders. In 2023, Texas enacted a law, Senate Bill 14, banning hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender-affirming care for minors.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1561 month ago

    To add to the pile of evidence that this is all just hateful bigotry and has nothing to do with children’s safety, cisgender children can still legally access these drugs, but not for the purpose of transitioning genders. The same drugs can still be used to delay aggressive puberty, which is a standard and relatively common usage, as well as other conditions that might affect a cisgender child. But a trans child who needs the same drugs for a different reason, will be told too bad, you’re out of luck. So two children could walk into the same doctor’s office and one will be turned away and forced to suffer through their gender dysphoria, with permanent repercussions for their mental health and body, and the other child will be treated with the drugs they need to be treated with. It’s absurdly unfair, unequal, and purposefully harmful to a vulnerable population.

    • NoIWontPickAName
      link
      fedilink
      -691 month ago

      Tbf there are all kinds of medicine that are ok for one thing but not another, cocaine for instance.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        901 month ago

        Yeah. Cocaine is ok if you’re trying to get an edge on the competition as a stock trader. But, not ok if you’re black.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        441 month ago

        The difference being, in this case, that this type of hormone treatment is a medically responsible and widely accepted treatment for both things.

        • NoIWontPickAName
          link
          fedilink
          -171 month ago

          I don’t disagree with you at all.

          It wasn’t me arguing against the post, just thinking out loud basically.

          I like the philosophy aspect of finding where the line is.

          I do it with like everything.

          Figure this one out, usually people find things that are fluffier less edible, but a squirrel and a rat are essentially the same animal but people will totally eat squirrel, but I don’t ever hear of people commonly eating rat even when other food is available.

          The fluffiness actually works against it.

          A pigeon and a dove are the same damn thing only differently colored.

          Most people wouldn’t eat a pigeon, but they would eat a dove or a squab

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            161 month ago

            The problem is that you’re not the one deciding what drug to prescribe. The government is.

            And even if you were, shouldn’t the decision on “where to draw the line” be made by the parent, the child, and their doctor?

            We can have all the philosophical conversations you want but we have people who are being affected by this right now.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              61 month ago

              We can have all the philosophical conversations you want but we have people who are being affected by this right now.

              Yeah, this is why I downvoted the original “cocaine” comment.

              Even if it was “thinking out loud,” it’s just an absurd thing to say when we are talking about children’s lives here.

          • @Kayday
            link
            111 month ago

            The fluffiness of the animal is kind of irrelevant? Rats and pigeons are generally perceived as potential disease carriers, regardless if they are more likely than squirrels or doves to carry.

      • Flying Squid
        link
        201 month ago

        HRT and puberty blockers are preventative medicine. Specifically, they prevent that incurable disease known as suicide.

      • RedSeries
        link
        English
        151 month ago

        Are you implying that it’s okay for cisgender folks to get HRT and gender-affirming care, but it’s not okay if for transgender folks to seek the same care? Explain to me how your assertion here applies to what we’re talking about.

          • RedSeries
            link
            English
            0
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            I feel so enlightened to your point then. /s

            • NoIWontPickAName
              link
              fedilink
              11 month ago

              I’m confused, do you want me to be against her for trans people?

              I’m not cool with that, trans people are people and their health care is just as important as ours

              • RedSeries
                link
                English
                11 month ago

                Then what was your point with your original comment? It came across as exclusionary to trans folks.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        111 month ago

        Doctors aren’t prescribing cocaine for the hell of it, though. Same thing with puberty blockers. Think we can trust doctors’ judgment when it comes to the drugs they prescribe.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            11 month ago

            Doctors aren’t prescribing, nor are they they source of, illicit fentanyl. The ease of synthesis means that clandestine labs can make a shit ton of the stuff, it’s that simple.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              1
              edit-2
              1 month ago

              Doctors legally prescribing fentanyl is what created the crisis. HHS estimates there are about 6.5m prescriptions per year in the 2010s

              That aside: corruption via pharmaceutical sales influence is a well known problem anyway. Medical doctors are not unbiased paragons of virtue

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                1
                edit-2
                1 month ago

                Look at the stats, fentanyl has always been rarely prescribed and even more rarely prescribed compared to other opioids. The fentanyl crisis is a crisis of economics: there is less profit to be made in creating, smuggling and selling other opioids compared to fentanyl.

                If you want to be accurate, doctors prescribed non-fentanyl opioids in situations where they weren’t needed, often illegally, when those prescriptions ran out, that caused a heroin crisis. That heroin crisis became a fentanyl crisis when drug dealers stopped selling heroin in favor of the cheaper and much stronger fentanyl.

        • NoIWontPickAName
          link
          fedilink
          11 month ago

          If I actually wanted I could have just deleted it and not have to deal with this, I don’t have a horse in this race.

          There will be side effects from everything, who am I to judge how medications should be used.

      • ArchRecord
        link
        fedilink
        English
        31 month ago

        Except we don’t have any widespread evidence for cocaine being taken outside of highly specific medicinal cases being helpful to the health and wellbeing of the individual.

        When it comes to gender affirming care, we have substantial evidence that proves it is safe and effective, as even a cursory glance at medical research on the topic will show:

        https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(23)00118-7/fulltext

        https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09540261.2015.1115753

        https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2789423

        https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008

        • @Tyfud
          link
          English
          111 month ago

          We don’t have too much of that left.

          • @Zachariah
            link
            51 month ago

            we can’t buy more time
            ’cause time won’t accept our money

    • @Burn_The_Right
      link
      81 month ago

      I hope you aren’t insinuating Ken Paxton is human. He’s hardly even organic.

      • _NoName_
        link
        fedilink
        2
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        Not the implication. Mosquitoes are a blight upon humanity too.

        Edit: Woops, wrong thing. Mosquitoes are the carriers, the bacteria/viruses are causing the blights, the diseases are the actual blights. I think you get what I mean.

        • @Burn_The_Right
          link
          11 month ago

          I think you get what I mean.

          I don’t, but I like the way you said it. Upvote for you.

  • @confluence
    link
    English
    551 month ago

    As doctors continue to flee the state

    • SuiXi3D
      link
      fedilink
      281 month ago

      My doctor closed her practice in the state. She’s the kindest doctor I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with, and I’m sad that I have to find a new one.

    • Scott
      link
      fedilink
      English
      71 month ago

      Or maybe strapped to a tree in a forest full of hungry grizzly bears

        • @BobbyGasoline
          link
          6
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          Or maybe strapped to a tree in a forest full of hungry horny grizzly bears. Is that better?

        • Flying Squid
          link
          41 month ago

          How about covered with honey and tied down on top of a nest of fire ants?

      • @Fosheze
        link
        English
        21 month ago

        Too quick. Lets strap him down in a coop full of hungry chickens.

  • FuglyDuck
    link
    English
    431 month ago

    This doc is a hero!

    Also, wouldn’t it be cool to send a message to Paxton, and send a few fed lawyers to be her defense…. ? (Biden… I’m looking at you.)

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    401 month ago

    I met this dude a few years ago and he is straight up nuts. It wasn’t like a brief thing. I spent hours with him. He’s as much of a douche bag as he seems like. I remember him bragging about all the lawsuits he filed against the Biden administration - something like 80+ - and ranting about the stolen election. It amazes me that he holds elected office. He’s a twat.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 month ago

      Reminder that Texas has been Republican controlled for 28 years.

      They’ve been voting for this reality for decades. People should move away from Texas.

      • @chiliedogg
        link
        51 month ago

        Reminder that Texas’s legislature and Congressiinal delegations were majority Democrat for 150 years, and it wasn’t until the boost from W’s Presidential election that they got their first majority.

        They then gerrymandered the shit out of the state out of cycle (it has been redistricted in response to the 2000 census the previous session) to flip it from majority-democrat to a 2/3rds Republican delegation to the House in a single election cycle.

        Texas isn’t nearly as red as people think. They got a slim majority in 2000 and 2002 and then rigged the game with gerrymandering and voter suppression.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        7
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        The elected doctor. /s

        Jk, I had a hard time pinpointing the target of speech as well, the final comment about holding elected office was the only indicator I found. Most people are really poor communicators/writers, eh?

        • Jojo, Lady of the West
          link
          fedilink
          81 month ago

          I mean also all the lawsuits he filed against the Biden administration makes it seem more likely it’s the conservative ag and not the liberal doctor…

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          51 month ago

          Paxton gets mentioned on almost a weekly basis and it’s always something scummy that he’s done. I assumed he was the only douche bag in this story. Then there’s the lawsuits against the Biden administration, complaints about a stolen election, and the part about being elected. I figured that was enough context to indicate who I was talking about. Maybe the doctor is a douche bag too, but I didn’t meet him so I don’t know.

    • @pingveno
      link
      English
      71 month ago

      Politician, perhaps. But I’m going to have to put a spotlight on Jonathan Mitchell, who came up with the structure behind the Texas Heartbeat Bill, which did an end run around judicial review by allowing enforcement via civil action by damn near anyone. The usual way to legally dispute a potentially unconstitutional law is to sue the government officials that enforce it, but because there wasn’t a specific person there was no real way to bring it to the judicial branch.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        21 month ago

        Sounds like a great strategy for reasonable gun legislation. Is your neighbor not responsibly securing their firearm? Sue them and get some money out of it.

  • Queen HawlSera
    link
    fedilink
    English
    141 month ago

    We should punish the people hurting our children, like this jackass attorney general preventing them from getting treatment for Gender Dysphoria.

  • ThePowerOfGeek
    link
    English
    121 month ago

    Why does he look like that alien from Men In Black that’s basically just a giant space roach wearing a human’s skin?

  • @Sam_Bass
    link
    111 month ago

    rabid little twat aint he

  • JackbyDev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    61 month ago

    Misread the title as implying people under 21 are minors in Texas.