Texas AG Ken Paxton Just Declared All-Out War on Transgender People

New Lawsuit Challenges Federal Rule Prohibiting Anti-Trans Discrimination in Healthcare

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seems intent on stripping transgender people of any and all rights under federal law — and he’s apparently found a judge who’s willing to help him get the job done. 

Two days after convincing U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to temporarily block the Obama administration from protecting trans schoolchildren, Paxton’s office filed another lawsuit Tuesday — also in O’Connor’s court — challenging new federal rules prohibiting discrimination against trans people in healthcare.

Equality Texas characterized Paxton’s efforts as an “assault on the very existence of an estimated 1.4 million Americans who are transgender,” and ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford wrote that the latest suit threatens “to create a society in which transgender people could legally be denied the necessary foundations of life simply because of their identities.” 

The suit challenges regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services that guarantee health coverage to trans people under the Affordable Care Act. Paxton’s office alleges the regulations, which were finalized in May, could force healthcare professionals to violate their medical judgment and their religious freedom. 

“The federal government has no right to force Texans to pay for medical procedures designed to change a person’s sex,” Paxton said in a release. “I am disappointed in the Obama Administration’s lack of consideration for medical professionals who believe that engaging in such procedures or treatment violates their Hippocratic Oath, their conscience, or their personal religious beliefs, which are protected by the Constitution and federal law.”

Texas is joined in the suit by Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kentucky and Kansas. Also listed as plaintiffs are three religiously affiliated nonprofit medical groups represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which was part of the case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision overturning the ACA’s contraception mandate. 

Paxton, who took office last year, said it’s the 13th lawsuit he’s been “forced to bring against the Obama Administration’s continued threats on constitutional rights of Texans.” 

Read the full complaint here.