An LGBT organization is fighting a demand to produce records regarding illegal gender mutilation procedures on minors and has taken the Texas attorney general to court. After more than a year of litigation filled with delays, a trial court ordered sweeping injunctions against the attorney general in favor of PFLAG.
The Supreme Court of Texas is set to hear this case in October, which may determine the future of the attorney general’s investigative powers.
In February of 2024, the Office of Attorney General Ken Paxton (OAG) sent demands to PFLAG relating to an investigation of medical professionals allegedly providing illegal gender mutilation procedures to minors and defrauding insurance.
Acting in opposition to examples set by federal precedent, the 261st District Court had a full trial for a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) challenge, filled with continuous delays, instead of a condensed hearing with a quick judgment.
Case Facts
The investigation of PFLAG began with an affidavit submitted for Texas v. Loe (2024). This Texas Supreme Court case affirmed Senate Bill 14—a state law that prohibits the medical mutilation of children for so-called “gender transitioning, gender reassignment, or gender dysphoria” purposes.
PFLAG CEO Brian Bond stated in the affidavit that during chapter meetings, members had “shared their contingency plans” and asked chapters for “alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas” due to the new law.
Members also sought “leads on affirming general practitioners … so that their adolescents would have access to multiple providers in the event that their primary providers stop providing gender-affirming medical care.”
In that same paragraph, he mentions that leaders of the chapters “have heard concerns about the impacts on transgender and non-binary youth in the foster care system, who receive health care coverage through Medicaid and will lose coverage for their medical care for gender dysphoria if [Senate Bill 14] goes into effect.”
According to case filings, the OAG served PFLAG a CID, seeking documents related to the contingency plans and alternative avenues to continue the medical mutilation of children mentioned in the affidavit.
The demands were sent for the purpose of finding medical professionals conducting insurance fraud to provide children with sterilizing cross-sex hormones and gender mutilation surgeries.
The Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) protects individuals from false, misleading, or deceptive business practices. Under this law, the OAG is authorized to serve any person a CID, which requires them to produce documents that the office believes are relevant to violations of the DTPA.
PFLAG challenged the CID in the 261st district court in Travis County.
PFLAG contends in its case filings that the OAG’s requests are overly broad, arguing they violate the Fourth Amendment, fall outside the Deceptive Trade Practices Act since the group does not provide goods or services, and that the requests violate the First Amendment by seeking private communications within chapter meetings.
PFLAG argues that private communications are not normally available in court discovery. However, the OAG asserts they “are a fairly run-of-the-mill discovery request” in their brief.
District Court Delays
After a hearing in March 2024, the district court placed a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the attorney general’s office, siding with PFLAG over the constitutional concerns.
The OAG then revised the CID to exclude member names to comply with the First Amendment protections. At a temporary injunction hearing 25 days after the TRO hearing, the court denied the OAG’s request to serve the CID or substitute it due to the temporary restraining order.
During the hearing, the court issued a temporary injunction based on the perceived constitutional violations of the original CID.
The OAG then filed a counterclaim, asserting that the revised CID meets the standards. Furthermore, the OAG wrote that the CID challenge does not need to be tried any further and the court should deliver a summary judgment—a decision made without a full trial—so that the dispute may be taken to an appellate court.
The OAG requested summary judgment under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which states that courts—in this case the district court—“shall not be prohibited” from considering relevant rulings from other jurisdictions, such as federal courts, when hearing CID challenges.
“[T]he law on CIDs is a little unclear,” wrote Fort Worth Attorney Tony McDonald, when Texas Scorecard asked about the statute. “[F]ederal precedent is not directly binding on state courts, other than SCOTUS precedent. I don’t think federal law on CIDs would be binding, but it would be informative.”
Federal courts have set the precedent of summary judgment, as explained by FTC v. Texaco (1977), due to the “important governmental interest in the [speedy] investigation of possible unlawful activity.”
“Given the profile of the issues, SCOTX absolutely should step in and stay the injunction and let OAG do its job to represent the interests of Texans,” McDonald stated. Staying the injunction would suspend it.
The next district court hearing was held in June 2024. No decision was issued. Another hearing was set for September 2024 without a stated purpose.
Instead of having the hearing, the court issued a partial judgment in September 2024, granting the modifications to the CID proposed by PFLAG. The court then rescheduled the hearing for October 2024, maintaining jurisdiction and preventing the OAG from appealing.
The Texas Supreme Court denied the AG’s request to take a direct appeal. However, the Court ordered the district court to issue a final judgment by March 10, 2025.
District Court Ruling
On March 10, 2025, over a year after PFLAG first petitioned the district court, Judge Amy Clark-Meachum (D) issued a final judgment.
The ruling was based on the original CID that the OAG fought to replace but was denied.
Judge Clark-Meachum’s ruling denied OAG enforcement of the revised Civil Investigative Demand, since PFLAG complied with the CID that PFLAG itself modified. It also held that there was no basis in Texas law for an expedited proceeding for a CID challenge.
Without including a citation to support her argument, she also wrote that the OAG did not prove they could enforce the CID under the DPTA. She ruled that the CID did not state the purpose for the investigation and sought information that was irrelevant to the insurance fraud investigation.
Since PFLAG already submitted the documents from their version of the modified CID, the court ruled that the revised CID made by the OAG cannot be enforced.
Judge Clark-Meachum’s ruling held that membership information and private communications were protected by the First Amendment, but did not cite any precedent or law that supported the court’s assertion that private communications are protected.
The brief submitted by PFLAG to the Texas Supreme Court states, “members are supported in sharing deeply personal information about themselves and their families. These meetings have an expectation of confidentiality.”
However, in its brief submitted to the Texas Supreme Court, the OAG explained, “private communications are a fairly run-of-the-mill discovery request.”
Since the district court found that the demanded documents were irrelevant to the insurance investigation, the ruling found the CID violated Fourth Amendment protections as well.
PFLAG’s brief explained the district court interpreted the statements made in the affidavit by the CEO relating to “‘contingency plans,’ ‘alternative avenues to maintain care,’ and ‘affirming general practitioners’” were referring to families relocating out of state or referring to “doctors continuing to provide gender-affirming medical care after the passage of SB14, but before its effective date,” which made the demands irrelevant to the insurance fraud investigations.
Lastly, the injunction was made permanent. Thus, the OAG was prohibited from examining any of PFLAG’s records relating to the topics in the CIDs and broadly prohibited from taking adverse action against the organization as it relates to the CIDs.
McDonald wrote that “[A]t the end of the day, this is about OAG’s authority to investigate criminal activity by radical leftists.”
In the attorney general’s brief to the Supreme Court of Texas, the OAG argues the injunction is an “…unjustified restriction on the Attorney General’s investigative authority, depriving the State of Texas of its ability to enforce consumer protection laws. The integrity of the CID process demands correction.”
Oral arguments for the case are set to be heard before the Supreme Court of Texas on October 7.
The Office of the Attorney General and PFLAG did not respond to requests for comment.
