Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) issued a legal opinion declaring that mental health providers cannot attempt to transition a child. The legal opinion, which Paxton’s office described as “landmark,” states that prohibitions under SB 14, which bans medical providers from providing gender transition-related care to minors, also applies to those in the mental health industry.
The legal opinion, sent to the Executive Director of the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council, Darrel Spinks, declares that the law includes a prohibition on “indoctrination by activists providing mental ‘health care’ designed to confuse children about their gender,'” Paxton’s office explained. The opinion states that “medically transitioning
children often starts with mental ‘health care.’” It adds that it “thus comes as little surprise that the Legislature also made clear a ‘health care provider’ who ‘facilitates’ unlawful efforts to transition a child is no less forbidden from receiving public funds than one who ‘provides’ that service themselves.”
A summary of the legal opinion asserts that a health care provider “unambiguously encompasses the professions regulated by the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council.” As a result, “[a]ny licensee that facilitates the provision of unlawful procedures or treatments that aim to transition a child’s sex are thus forbidden from receiving public money in support of those efforts and, separately, risk revocation of their licenses to practice.”
“Any radical facilitating the ‘transitioning’ of our kids is committing child abuse,” Paxton said in a statement. “The law is clear that these radical procedures are illegal and in no world should Texans’ tax dollars be used to permanently harm children. This opinion should send a clear warning there will be consequences for any medical professional, whether a doctor or a therapist, who is illegally ‘transitioning’ Texas kids.”
In 2024, Paxton filed a lawsuit against a doctor conducting illegal transgender operations on minors.
