Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a Dallas-area doctor who allegedly provided gender-transition drugs to nearly two dozen teenagers in violation of state law.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Collin County District Court accuses Dr. May Chi Lau, a physician and associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, of prescribing hormones to patients in violation of the state’s 2023 law barring sex-change drugs and surgeries for those under 18.
“Evidence obtained by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that a Dallas-area doctor illegally provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of ‘transitioning’ the child’s biological sex,” said the office in a Thursday statement.
“The doctor allegedly used false diagnoses and billing codes to mask these unlawful prescriptions,” the office said.
The Washington Times has reached out to Dr. Lau and UT Southwestern Medical Center for comment.
Twenty-four states ban gender-transition drugs and surgeries for minors — two other states ban only surgeries — but the Texas complaint is believed to be the first filed by a state attorney general against a doctor accused of violating such laws.
“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” said Mr. Paxton, a Republican. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 14, which bars gender-transition drugs and procedures for youth under 18, in June 2023. The law went into effect Sept. 1, 2023, with a “weaning-off” period for minors already undergoing treatment.
According to the lawsuit, Dr. Lau prescribed testosterone to 21 teenagers believed to be biological females for the purpose of changing their gender before SB 14 went into effect, with instructions for them to fill the prescriptions after Sept. 1.
“Lau cannot circumvent SB 14 by writing prescriptions to her patients prior to the SB 14 taking effect with orders to fill or refill the prescriptions after it takes effect,” said the complaint, “because a ‘prescription’ order is not a singular discrete act, but a continuing act of treatment that begins with the prescription being written and continues through the pharmacist filling the prescription and the drug being used as directed by the patient.”
Two of the prescriptions were first written after SB 14 went into effect on Sept. 1.
Dr. Lau was also accused of falsifying medical and billing records by diagnosing a 15-year-old boy with an endocrine disorder and prescribing puberty blockers “when in fact Lau was using puberty blockers for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex.”
“Lau is a scofflaw who is putting the health and safety of minors at risk by prescribing testosterone, a controlled substance, to biological female minors for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex,” said the 35-page complaint.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction preventing Dr. Lau from prescribing gender-transition drugs to minors and financial penalties.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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