AUSTIN (LN) — The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday vacated three temporary injunctions that had shielded families from state child-welfare investigations into their children's use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for gender transitioning, ruling the cases had become moot after the Department of Family and Protective Services permanently closed its probes and most of the minors reached adulthood.
The per curiam opinion, issued without oral argument, resolved consolidated appeals in two Travis County suits — one brought by the parents of a then-16-year-old identified as Mary Doe and a psychologist who treats gender-dysphoric children, and a second brought by three additional families and PFLAG, Inc. — that had challenged a February 2022 directive from Governor Greg Abbott ordering DFPS to investigate what he called abusive procedures for gender transitioning.
The court found that DFPS had permanently closed its investigations of three of the four families, with the agency's associate commissioner for statewide intake stating that when an investigation is closed, DFPS will not investigate new reports involving the same allegation that has already been investigated, and that subsequent reports regarding the same allegation will be closed without investigation. The fourth family, the Does, was differently situated: DFPS said its investigation of them remained technically open only because the trial court's injunction had prohibited it from closing the file. In any event, the court noted, Mary Doe had reached the age of majority, and her parents have no other children — stripping DFPS of any authority to investigate them at all.
Plaintiffs pushed back on dismissal, arguing that voluntary cessation of challenged conduct is disfavored grounds for mootness and that DFPS could reopen investigations once the injunctions were lifted. The court rejected that framing, invoking its own recent precedent for the proposition that voluntary cessation can moot a case when subsequent events make absolutely clear that the challenged conduct could not reasonably be expected to recur. Indulging the plaintiffs' theory, the court said, would require an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable rather than the close tether to reality that Texas mootness doctrine demands.
PFLAG's associational standing fell with the member families' claims. Because the organization's standing depended on the standing of the Voes, the Roes, and the Briggles — whose claims the court had just found moot — PFLAG's claim for injunctive relief was moot as well.
The court also dismissed the claims of Dr. Megan Mooney, a psychologist who treats children with gender dysphoria and who argued she faced civil and criminal exposure if she complied with DFPS reporting requirements. The court found she lacked standing because she had not alleged any threatened prosecution, license revocation, patient lawsuit, or patient departure from her practice — only a theoretical possibility of some future injury, which it said was insufficient under Texas standing doctrine.
The opinion was explicit about what it did not decide. In a footnote, the court said its holding is limited to the claims for injunctive relief before it in this interlocutory appeal and that it expresses no opinion on the justiciability of plaintiffs' claims for declaratory relief, which are not before it. Chief Justice Blacklock filed a separate concurrence; Justice Sullivan did not participate.
The court reversed the court of appeals' judgments, dismissed the interlocutory appeals, and vacated the trial court's injunction orders for lack of jurisdiction.
The families' underlying declaratory-relief claims — challenging the Governor's directive, DFPS's February 2022 press release, and Attorney General opinion KP-0401 as ultra vires, unconstitutional, and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act — remain pending and unresolved on the merits.