Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday charged a Dallas doctor with providing transition-related care to nearly 20 minors in violation of state law.

Paxton alleged that Dr. Mei Chee Lau, who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors for the purpose of gender reassignment from October 2023 to August 2023. In 2023, Texas enacted a law, Senate Bill 14, establishing hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender maintenance care for minors.

“Texas passed legislation to protect children from dangerous, unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and harmful effects,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be criminalized to the full extent of the law.”

If Lau is found to have violated the law, he could lose his medical license and be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Paxton’s case is the first in the nation where an attorney general files an action against a private physician for allegedly violating restrictions on care related to the transition of a minor.

So far, several attorneys general, including Mr. Paxton, have subpoenaed hospitals and clinics that provide such care to minors to turn over records of these patients. . Twenty-six states have bans on at least some forms of gender-affirming care for minors, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ restrictions on transition-related care in June 2023, but they were initially blocked by courts following lawsuits by families and doctors. In September 2023, the Texas Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect pending an appeal from the state, and in June of this year, it vacated and reversed the previous injunction, allowing the law to stand.