Texas Children’s Hospital will stop providing gender-affirming care to minors and fire five physicians who did, develop a “detransition clinic,”and pay the state $10 million as part of a settlement announced Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The settlement — which Texas Children’s called a “difficult decision” in a statement provided to MS NOW — marks the conclusion of a 2023 investigation by Paxton’s office into whether staffers at the hospital were violating the law by facilitating gender transitions for minors. The same year, a state law took effect banning gender hormone and surgical interventions for minors — one of more than two dozen bans that have been passed nationwide, according to the Movement Advancement Project, as Republicans have campaigned against transgender care and other transgender rights issues.
The settlement was announced in conjunction with the Justice Department, which has also targeted doctors and clinics providing gender-affirming care to kids through subpoenas.
“The Justice Department will use every weapon at its disposal to end the destructive and discredited practice of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the department’s statement announcing the settlement.
Paxton — who is running for Senate and locked in a tight battle for the Republican nomination with incumbent Sen. John Cornyn — called the settlement “historic” and said it “reflects an institutional and fundamental cultural shift away from radical ‘gender’ ideology.”
“In addition to helping establish the first-ever Detransition Clinic and securing millions, this settlement will ensure that the deranged child mutilators who hurt our kids are fired and held accountable,” Paxton said in a statement.
Research has shown that only a tiny fraction of transgender minors — less than half of 1% — receive gender-affirming medications and that surgeries in particular are nearly nonexistent on young people. Leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, support access to gender-affirming care, including for minors, and oppose efforts to restrict it.
But Republicans have alleged that gender-affirming care amounts to child abuse and have highlighted the stories of so-called detransitioners, the small and rare group of people who reverse their gender transitions after experiencing regret.
According to Paxton’s statement, the hospital’s new ‘detransition clinic’ will provide free services to all patients for the first five years after it opens. What exactly the clinic’s work will consist of is unclear. A spokesperson for the hospital did not respond to a request for more information.
The hospital also agreed to fire five physicians — whom Paxton’s press release described as “woke doctors” — who provided gender-affirming care to minors, and will pay $10 million for billing Texas Medicaid for what Paxton’s office said were illegal interventions.
Texas Children’s Hospital said in a statement that all reviews found that the hospital remained compliant with the law. It added that hospital leaders decided to settle “to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation” after being subjected to “an unconscionable campaign of mistruths and mischaracterizations related to gender-affirming care.”
“This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care and groundbreaking discoveries of our exceptional clinicians and scientists,” the statement said. “We stand proud knowing we will always put our purpose over politics and that we have and will continue to follow the law.”
Advocates for LGBTQ Texans slammed the settlement.
Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Texas, said the organization is “disturbed with the state’s relentless efforts to bully transgender youth and their families, doctors and communities who support them with evidence-based care.”
Hall added: “A so-called detransition clinic serves one purpose for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: to push trans people out of public life. This effort is cruel and a massive waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Brad Pritchett, the CEO of Equality Texas, which advocates for LGBTQ Texans, said in a statement that Paxton “is blackmailing a hospital system into creating a resource that no one is asking for.”
“It is embarrassing that a hospital once revered for its care has lost its integrity and put politics over patients,” Pritchett said.
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