Texas Investigates Parents Over Care for Transgender Youth, Suit Says

HOUSTON — Texas officials have begun investigating parents of transgender adolescents for possible child abuse, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, after Gov. Greg Abbott directed them last week to handle certain medical treatments as possible crimes.

The investigations by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, which have not been previously reported, were started in response to an order from Mr. Abbott to the agency, the lawsuit says. The order followed a nonbinding opinion by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, that parents who provide their transgender teenagers with puberty-suppressing drugs or other medically accepted treatments — which doctors describe as gender-affirming care — could be investigated for child abuse.

Among the first to be investigated was an employee of the state protective services agency who has a 16-year-old transgender child. On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Lambda Legal went to state court in Austin to try to stop the inquiry.

The employee, who was not named in the court filing, works on the review of reports of abuse and neglect. She was placed on administrative leave last week, according to the filing, and on Friday was visited by an investigator from the agency, which is also seeking medical records related to her child. The family of the child, identified in court documents only as Mary Doe, has refused to voluntarily turn over the records.

“We are terrified for Mary’s health and well-being, and for our family,” wrote the employee in a declaration filed with the suit, in which she and her husband are identified as Jane and John Doe. “I feel betrayed by my state and the agency for whom I work.”

She added: “Not providing Mary with the medically necessary health care that she needs is not an option for us.”

According to the lawsuit, the state’s investigator told the parents that the only allegation against them was that their transgender daughter might have been provided with gender-affirming health care and was “currently transitioning from male to female.”

Neither a spokeswoman for the state protective agency nor the governor’s office responded to requests for comment.

It was not clear if Mr. Abbott’s order would survive judicial scrutiny. The order does not change Texas law, and several county attorneys and district attorneys have said that they would not prosecute families for child abuse under the new definition. Still, the directive by Mr. Abbott has had a chilling effect, and the ramifications of the redefinition are significant.

As Mr. Abbott described in his letter, the order would mean that “all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children” would be required to report to state authorities those that they believe are receiving gender-affirming treatment, or face criminal penalties.

In the court filing on Tuesday, the A.C.L.U. of Texas and Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization focusing on the L.G.B.T.Q. community, sought to block the request for medical records in the employee’s case and, more broadly,…