1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

Gov Sherrill and State PLAINTIFF’S ORIGINAL VERIFIED PETITION TO SET ASIDE CIVIL INVESTIGATIVE DEMANDS, FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT, AND APPLICATION FOR A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AND TEMPORARY AND PERMANENT INJUNCTIVE RELIEF Plaintiff PFLAG, Inc. (“PFLAG”) files this Original Verified Petition to Set Aside Civil Investigative Demands, For Declaratory Judgment, and Application for a Temporary Restraining Order and Temporary and Permanent Injunctive Relief (“Petition”) against the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas (“OAG”) and Warren Kenneth Paxton, Jr., in his official capacity as Attorney General of Texas (“Attorney General”). In support of its Petition, Plaintiff respectfully shows the following: I. INTRODUCTION Founded in 1973 by a mother and her gay son, PFLAG was born from a family leading with love. This inspiring alliance of LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones has continued to fuel PFLAG for fifty years. Now, however, the OAG, through its Consumer Protection Division, has targeted PFLAG with investigative demands that threaten to violate numerous constitutional rights of PFLAG and its members, including the rights to petition, speech and association.On February 9, 2024, the OAG served PFLAG with a Civil Investigative Demand (“CID”) (attached hereto as Exhibit A) and a Notice of Demand for Sworn Written Statement (“Demand for Sworn Statement”) (attached hereto as Exhibit B) (collectively, the “Demands”), both dated February 5, 2024. The Demands instruct PFLAG to provide information purportedly related to the OAG’s “investigation of actual or possible violations” of Section 17.46 of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (“DTPA”) for issues related to alleged “misrepresentations regarding Gender Transitioning and Reassignment Treatments and Procedures and Texas law.” PFLAG’s response to the Demands is currently due March 4, 2024 (see February 20, 2024 email from Mr. Shatto, attached hereto as Exhibit C) The goal of the OAG in serving these Demands is neither to enforce Texas law, nor to protect Texas consumers under the DTPA. These Demands are a clear and unmistakable overreach by the OAG in retaliation for PFLAG successfully standing up for its members, who include Texas transgender youth and their families, against the OAG’s, the Attorney General’s, and the State of Texas’s relentless campaign to persecute Texas trans youth and their loving parents. While that retaliation is itself a reason to set aside the Demands, PFLAG is entitled to a temporary restraining order and temporary and permanent injunctive relief because the Demands violate PFLAG and its members’ rights to freedom of petition, speech and assembly and to be free from unjustified searches and seizures, are contrary to the OAG’s authority under the DTPA, and impermissibly seek to evade the protections afforded to PFLAG as a civil litigant. In 2022, PFLAG successfully obtained temporary injunctive relief shielding its member families from the Texas Department of Family Protective Services’ (“DFPS”) operationalization of Governor Greg Abbott’s directive to investigate families of transgender youth who receive gender-affirming medical care for the treatment of gender dysphoria—a directive based on the 2Attorney General’s non-binding opinion claiming that necessary, evidence-based gender- affirming medical treatment for transgender youth is per se “child abuse” under Texas law. See PFLAG, Inc. v. Abbott, Cause No. D-1-GN-22-002569 (in the 459th District Court of Travis County, Texas). See PFLAG, Inc. v. Abbott, Cause No. D-1-GN-22-002569 (in the 459th District Court of Travis County, Texas). And in 2023, PFLAG successfully obtained a temporary injunction at the district court enjoining enforcement of Senate Bill 14 (“SB14” or the “Ban”), which seeks to prohibit the provision and state funding of gender-affirming medical care for the treatment of gender dysphoria of transgender adolescents. See Loe v. Texas, Cause No. D-1-GN- 23-003616 (in the 201st District Court of Travis County, Texas). Through the OAG’s own actions, discovery has been stayed i