Texas Rule Targeting Transgender Kids Blocked by Judge For Now

Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s effort to crack down on most health-care practices for transgender children was temporarily blocked statewide by a judge who ruled the Republican exceeded his authority.

Abbott’s Feb. 22 directive to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to consider gender-affirming care for minors to be “child abuse” violates the separation of powers because it has the effect of a new law “without new legislation,” Judge Amy Clark Meachum said Friday in Austin.

The judge, at the end of a daylong hearing, issued a temporary injunction that prohibits the state from investigating families whose transgender ...