“Dr. Lau decided to move her medical practice to Oregon and saw no reason to continue to maintain her Texas license,” said Craig Smyser, an attorney representing Lau. “Dr. Lau continues to deny the Texas Attorney General’s politically- and ideologically-driven allegations.”
A Texas pediatrician has surrendered her medical license a year after being targeted by a law banning certain types of gender-affirming care.
According to The Texas Tribune, last October, state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Dallas-area adolescent medicine physician May Lau for allegedly prescribing testosterone to at least 21 underage patients. Her license was cancelled at Lau’s own request earlier this month.
“Dr. Lau decided to move her medical practice to Oregon and saw no reason to continue to maintain her Texas license,” said Craig Smyser, an attorney representing Lau. “Dr. Lau continues to deny the Texas Attorney General’s politically- and ideologically-driven allegations.”
Paxton, for his part, has characterized Lau’s move as a “major victory” for Texas.
“Doctors who permanently hurt kids by giving them experimental drugs are nothing more than disturbed left-wing activists who have no business being in the medical field,” Paxton said a press release. “We will not relent in holding anyone who tries to ‘transition’ kids accountable.”
In his initial round of claims, Paxton called Lau a “scofflaw” and accused her of “falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records” after giving a 15-year-old patient a puberty blocker-type device. Lau, at the time, purportedly billed the patient’s insurance company for an endocrine disorder instead of gender dysphoria.
Paxton has since filed similar claims against other doctors, including an El Paso-based endocrinologist and a Dallas pediatrician. In September, the state dropped its lawsuit against the El Paso doctor, finding that he had stopped providing gender-affirming care shortly before the state-level ban took effect.
However, in filings submitted last week, attorneys for Dallas pediatrician Brett Cooper said that Paxton’s office has repeatedly issued misleading information that has damaged their client’s reputation. Furthermore, Cooper’s legal team says that Paxton is already trying to “poison the Collin County jury pool.”
“Before any evidence had been produced, Attorney General Paxton’s office issued two misleading press releases, insinuating that evidence showed Dr. Cooper had ‘knowingly’ and ‘illegally’ prescribed hormones for the purposes of gender transition,” Cooper’s attorneys wrote in a court docuemnt. “If the State continues to make unrestrained, misleading, and defamatory statements to the public, it will prevent Dr. Cooper from obtaining a fair and impartial jury.”
Jonathon Gooch of Equality Texas told the Tribune that Paxton’s lawsuits are part of a broader cultural backlash against people who identify as transgender.
“When the government is consistently attacking services that are specifically provided to trans people, it emboldens […] a small group of anti-trans vigilantes to harass people on the streets, in the bathrooms, at the doctor’s office,” Gooch told the Texas Tribune. “And that’s really alarming and really scary for trans people in the state of Texas right now.”
Sources
Dallas pediatrician sued over providing hormone treatments to teens surrenders medical license
North Texas doctor surrenders state medical license amid gender-affirming care lawsuit
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