Statement
Human Rights Alliance
March 2, 2026
The Human Rights Alliance Condemns Texas Attorney General’s Dangerous Legal Opinion Targeting Mental Health Providers – Applauds New Mexico Leadership for Upholding Evidence-Based Care and Rejecting Anti-Trans Propaganda
Santa Fe, NM — The Human Rights Alliance (HRA) strongly condemns the recent legal opinion issued by Ken Paxton asserting that mental health professionals who provide gender-affirming therapy to minors may be prosecuted under Texas law. This alarming expansion of Texas’s 2023 ban on transition-related medical care attempts to criminalize not only doctors, but therapists who offer supportive, evidence-based counseling to transgender youth.
According to reporting by KXAN, Paxton’s opinion interprets the state’s ban on youth transition-related medical care to include licensed mental health providers who “facilitate” such care. In effect, this opinion suggests that simply affirming a young person’s gender identity in a therapeutic setting could expose providers to legal liability.
Let us be clear: this is not sound public policy. It is not grounded in credible medical science. It is political theater designed to weaponize fear and misinformation about transgender youth and their families.
Every major medical and mental health association in the United States recognizes that gender-affirming care — including mental health support — is evidence-based and, for many youth, life-saving. Supportive therapy does not “facilitate harm.” It reduces anxiety, depression, and suicide risk.
Criminalizing therapists for doing their jobs ethically and compassionately is an extraordinary and dangerous overreach of state power.
The Human Rights Alliance stands in solidarity with transgender youth and families in Texas who are being targeted by this escalating campaign of political hostility. We also stand with the mental health professionals now facing intimidation for providing care consistent with established standards of practice.
At the same time, we are profoundly grateful to live and work in New Mexico.
Unlike the fear-driven rhetoric emerging from Texas and amplified by the broader MAGA political movement, New Mexico’s elected leaders have refused to buy into propaganda and outright falsehoods about gender diversity and gender-affirming care. Our state has chosen a path rooted in evidence, compassion, and respect for families.\
Here in New Mexico, lawmakers and executive leadership have upheld protections for LGBTQIA2S youth and have trusted parents, medical professionals, and mental health providers to make individualized decisions based on best practices — not partisan talking points. Our state has affirmed that transgender young people deserve dignity, safety, and access to appropriate care, not suspicion or criminalization.
The contrast could not be clearer.
Where Texas threatens prosecution, New Mexico protects families.
Where Texas amplifies misinformation, New Mexico follows science.
Where Texas seeks to silence therapists, New Mexico supports ethical medical practice.
The Human Rights Alliance calls on leaders across the country to reject the dangerous expansion of state power into exam rooms and counseling offices. We urge policymakers to listen to medical experts, not political operatives, and to center the well-being of young people above ideological agendas.
Transgender youth are not political props. They are children deserving of care, safety, and hope.
And here in New Mexico, we will continue to defend exactly that.
Kevin Bowen – Executive Director, M. A. D’Arrigo – Board President, and the HRA Board of Directors
