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A Texas judge is hearing a case Friday on whether to prevent state officials from investigating reports of transgender youth receiving gender confirming care as child abuse. District Judge Amy Clark Meachum will hear from attorneys for the state and the parents of a 16-year-old girl who were being investigated by the Department of Family and Protective Services over such care. (3/11)

Fighting to keep his job in a heated GOP primary this year, Attorney General Ken Paxton repeatedly insisted that certain medical treatments for transgender youth abusive and illegal. But in the relative calm of a court hearing, the state’s lawyers have said something quite different: Gender-affirming care for minors is not abuse in all cases, and the state won’t go after parents just because their trans child is receiving these treatments. “Despite the frankly breathless media coverage of these important issues, there has been no call to investigate all trans youth or all youth undergoing these gender affirming procedures or therapies. That’s not the case,” Assistant Attorney General Ryan Kercher said in court last week in the first legal test for the state’s policy of investigating certain care for trans minors as abuse. (McGaughy, 3/10)

Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton are turning the law-and-order Republican Party into a gang of bullies, targeting transgender kids — and the parents who support them — with their decision to treat gender-affirming health care as child abuse. That health care is legal under Texas law, but this is election season. Cynics who think politicians will say anything to get reelected have a new, sparkling piece of evidence. Other people caught doing what the governor and attorney general are doing — Texas public school students, for instance — risk breaking the law. Check out the definition of illegal bullying in the Texas Education Code: “Bullying means a single significant act or a pattern of acts by one or more students directed at another student that exploits an imbalance of power and involves engaging in written or verbal expression, expression through electronic means, or physical conduct …” (Ramsey, 3/11)

Sixty-five major U.S. companies who do business in Texas are calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to reverse his order requiring the state's child welfare agency to investigate gender-affirming care for transgender youth as a form of child abuse by their parents. The companies, including Apple, Dow, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Meta and PayPal, in conjunction with the LGBT advocacy nonprofit Human Rights Campaign took out full-page print and digital advertisements in the Dallas Morning News that state in all capital, bold letters: “Discrimination is bad for business.” (Goldenstein, 3/10)

A federal appeals court refused Thursday to order Arizona to pay for a transgender teenage boy's chest-reconstruction surgery and said youngsters may not be capable of making such decisions for themselves. But the youth's lawyer said the ruling was a partial victory because the court classified anti-transgender bias as sex discrimination. In a 3-0 ruling, a conservative panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge’s refusal to require Arizona’s Medicaid program to fund surgery sought by a youth identified as John Doe, who was 15 when he appealed the state’s denial and is now 17. (Egelko, 3/10)

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed the Walt Disney Company as "woke" on Thursday after the company came out against a Republican-led parental rights bill in the state that progressives have claimed is anti-LGBTQ. Speaking to supporters in Boca Raton, DeSantis said there is "zero" chance he's going to reverse his position on disallowing the instruction of "transgenderism in kindergarten classrooms." (Chasmar and Laco, 3/11)

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Chapek on Wednesday tried to soothe outrage at the company’s muted response to Florida’s controversial bill restricting classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity. But his belated statement opposing the legislation, and outreach to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not satisfy critics, including queer Disney employees outraged by reports that the company had donated to politicians who backed the bill. The company is a huge Florida employer, with tens of thousands of workers at Walt Disney World Resort. (Faughnder, 3/10)