The Republicans have just gone to a new level... a new level of persecution. I believe it rises to the level of a pogrom. The courts have ordered the seizure of records from a peer support group in Texas.
The Texas Supreme Court said the state only needs a reasonable belief that the group may have relevant information, not proof, and allowed PFLAG to redact identifying details about families before producing documents.
Texas Public Media
Lucio Vasquez, Texas Newsroom
March 13, 2026
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Texas Attorney General’s Office can require LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG to turn over documents related to an investigation into medical care for transgender minors.
The court overturned a previous district court decision that had largely blocked the AG’s office from seeking certain records.
The dispute stems from a civil investigative demand issued in 2024 by Texas AG Ken Paxton. His office is investigating whether medical providers may have violated state law by misleading insurers about treatments provided to transgender minors.
This echoes Europe in the 1930s, when the Germans seized the records of the Institute for Sexual Science run by Magnus Hirschfeld. It was also the era when people were smuggling Jews and LGBTQ+ individuals out of Eastern Europe while the Nazis hunted them down. And now families are fleeing Texas! Think about what they are asking: suddenly everyone becomes a suspect. A mother asking for help for her child becomes a suspect.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office argued those statements created a "reasonable belief" that PFLAG possessed information about medical providers attempting to circumvent the state ban through deceptive billing. PFLAG sued to block the state’s subsequent civil investigative demand in February 2024, alleging it was an overreach that threatened member privacy.
Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote that the courts should not interfere with the investigative discretion authorized by lawmakers.
"Whether or how vigorously the Attorney General’s office should pursue investigations of this nature are political questions entrusted by the Legislature to the Attorney General, not to the courts," Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote. "Courts are well suited to resolve discovery fights. Courts are not well suited to second-guess the wisdom of investigatory decisions made by an elected executive officer entrusted by the law with broad discretion."
They are making the Inquisition look mild compared to the damage this will do to our community. This will decimate us. I used to be on the board of a peer support group called the Connecticut Outreach Society, and I regularly received emails asking for trans-friendly doctors. If we were in Texas under this ruling, those emails could be subpoenaed. Think about that: in Texas, peer support groups have effectively been branded as criminal enterprises.
Texas Public Media went on to write...
The court said PFLAG must turn over several categories of documents, including:
- Communications about “contingency plans” or alternative care options
- Referrals or lists of health care providers for transgender youth in Texas
- Communications involving certain health care providers referenced in the investigation
- Records tied to the executive director’s comments in the lawsuit affidavit about families seeking ways to maintain care in Texas
I look back at the time when I was helping run COS and remember all those frightened voices on the other end of those emails. They weren't criminals; they were human beings reaching out for help. Now the state of Texas has effectively criminalized that help. Compassion is being treated as evidence in a witch hunt.
This isn't just a “Texas problem” or a “trans problem.” When a court rules that a politician’s “political discretion” outweighs the privacy of law-abiding families and advocacy groups, every American’s right to associate and speak freely is in jeopardy. If they can do this to PFLAG today, they can do it to any group they deem a political enemy tomorrow. Any peer-support group is now fair game for their political crusades—even groups for battered spouses could be vulnerable to these inquisitors.
Can you imagine authorities seizing records from a women’s peer-support group for miscarriages because they suspect someone might have had an abortion? Where does this madness stop?
Texas has already tried to obtain the medical records of trans children from other states and was rebuffed by those states’ courts. So now they are digging into the records of support groups. Does that mean people like me should be combing through our emails for any out-of-state messages from people asking for help?
This is a witch hunt that sends shivers down my spine. Are we going to see mass arrests of parents of trans children?
In their zeal to erase us, trans people will die. But clearly, that is exactly what they want. We are such a small population that we are especially vulnerable to government tyranny and persecution.
