Texas suing USDA over requirement to add LGBTQ protections to nutrition programs’ nondiscrimination policies Texas suing USDA over requirement to add LGBTQ protections to nutrition programs’ nondiscrimination policies.

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service announced in May that it would expand its definition of sexual discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Paxton and other attorneys general are suing in response. Attorney General Ken Paxton and more than 20 other attorneys general are challenging the federal Food and Nutrition Service’s new policy that recipients of food assistance funds update their nondiscrimination policies to protect LGBTQ people. In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was expanding its interpretation of discrimination based on sex. As a result, state agencies and programs that receive funding from the Food and Nutrition Service were ordered to “investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation” and to update their policies to specifically prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.