Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General

AUSTIN – (News Release) Attorney General Paxton has joined a Montana-led amicus brief in the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit pushing back against school administrators who are encouraging students to “transition” without their parents’ knowledge or consent.  

The brief is in support of Parents Defending Education (PDE) after PDE challenged Linn-Mar School District’s policy of allowing students to make a “Gender Support Plan” and authorizing children to make crucial decisions about their medical care without notifying their parents. The amicus brief was filed after a district court erroneously decided not to issue an injunction against the school district.  

The policy, which begins in seventh grade, is emblematic of an alarming national trend of left-wing school districts attempting to interfere with the vital role that parents play in children’s development. Allowing these young students to make life-altering decisions about their so-called gender identity without alerting parents is not only extremely damaging to the students themselves and to the entire family unit, but it also unlawfully violates parents’ foundational right to raise their children.  

As the brief says, “Linn-Mar’s policy violates parents’ fundamental right to ‘to direct the upbringing of their children’—‘perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by [the Supreme] Court.’ The policy inflicts an immediate and irreparable harm on parents by withholding information about whether their child has taken any action concerning his or her gender identity, leaving parents completely in the dark about their child’s mental and emotional well-being.”   

To read the full brief, click here.