Texas drops requests for minors' gender-affirming care records from Seattle hospital

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has agreed to drop his requests that a Seattle hospital turn over records regarding gender-affirming care potentially given to Texas minors as a settlement agreement ended a monthslong court battle over the petitions.

Seattle Children's Hospital sued Paxton in December to block his demands for the medical records of any Texas residents under the age of 18 who might have received gender-affirming medical treatments from the out-of-state hospital. Texas lawmakers in May passed Senate Bill 14, which prohibits doctors in Texas from providing certain gender-affirming medical treatments — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and certain surgeries — to minors experiencing gender dysphoria, a condition in which a person’s gender identity doesn’t match their sex at birth.

A Travis County state district judge dismissed the lawsuit Friday after the settlement was reached, according to court records.

"Seattle Children’s successfully fought the Texas Attorney General’s overreaching demands to obtain confidential patient information," a hospital spokesperson wrote in an email to the American-Statesman on Monday evening after the settlement was announced. "As a result, the Texas Attorney General withdrew his request."

The agreement stipulates that Seattle Children's Hospital will withdraw its registration to conduct business in Texas by Friday, but it's unclear what effect, if any, the withdrawal of its registration will have.

Seattle Children's does not operate any in-person clinics in the state and does not provide gender-affirming treatments in Texas, according to court filings. Some of the hospital's administrative staff members work remotely from Texas, but they won't be affected by the settlement, a hospital spokesperson told the Statesman.

Paxton framed the settlement agreement as a victory for opponents of gender-affirming care for minors in a news release Monday.

“When we merely began asking questions, (Seattle Children's Hospital) decided to leave the State of Texas and forfeit the opportunity to do business here," Paxton wrote in a statement. "Let this make our position clear: medical providers in Texas must abide by our laws."

In the statement, Paxton characterized the treatments as "experimental" and said they "can have life-altering negative consequences."

Major medical associations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association — support providing developmentally appropriate and individualized gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

However, the American Academy of Pediatrics and several national health agencies in Europe have called for more research on the long-term effects of treatments such as hormone therapy.

Paxton's investigation into the hospital

Texas' top lawyer was investigating the Seattle hospital and its physicians — along with at least one other clinic in Georgia — for possible violations of a Texas provision that bans "misrepresentations regarding Gender Transitioning Treatments and Procedures and Texas law," the attorney general's office said in subpoenas issued to the hospital.

Paxton had demanded medical records for gender-affirming care provided on or after Jan. 1, 2022, more than one year before Texas outlawed such treatments for minors with SB 14.

The demands are part of a yearslong effort by Paxton, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the state GOP to eliminate gender-affirming care for minors in the state, which in some cases has led families with transgender children to move to other states such as Washington.

While the legal battle against Seattle Children's is over, Texas is still locked in litigation relating to other actions the state has taken in its yearslong effort to eliminate gender-affirming care for minors.

PFLAG National, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, sued Abbott and the state in 2022 after the governor directed the Department of Family and Protective Services to launch child abuse investigations of parents suspected of having provided gender-affirming treatment to minors.

The Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals recently upheld several lower court rulings preventing the state from launching child abuse inquiries against parents who are members of PFLAG National.

Paxton is also awaiting an opinion from the conservative Texas Supreme Court on a lawsuit brought by the Texas ACLU against the state challenging SB 14.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Seattle hospital won't give gender-affirming care records to Texas