By Sarah Weaver
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is launching an investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital over reports that it has been providing children with sex changes in violation of state law.
Whistleblower documents alleged Tuesday that the hospital is providing transgender surgeries, cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to children, despite previously stating it would cease offering the procedures, City Journal reported. (RELATED: New York Bill Requires Medical Students Take ‘Implicit Bias’ Training To Improve ‘Health Care Outcomes’)
“I’ve been clear that any ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that hurt our children constitute child abuse under Texas law,” Paxton said in a press release. “Recent reports indicate that Texas Children’s Hospital may be unlawfully performing such procedures, and my office it is [sic] working to uncover the truth.”
Paxton announced an investigation into Dell Children’s Medical Center in Central Texas in May, after reports that sex change treatments were provided to children at the hospital as young as 8 and 9.
While some sex change treatments, such as puberty blockers, are touted as reversible, a growing number of individuals known as “detransitioners” have sounded the alarm on the harms of these treatments, saying they were too young to consent to the operations and did not know their full implications. The Daily Caller interviewed prominent detransitioners including Chloe Cole, Cat Cattinson, and Walt Heyer for a recent documentary “Damaged: The Transing of America’s Kids.” (RELATED: Watch “Damaged: The Transing of America’s Kids”)
The New York Times ran a piece Tuesday dismissing the stories of individuals who regret getting transgender treatments as children, saying their experiences paled in comparison to the “objections from transgender people and medical experts.”
Puberty blockers can cause bone development issues in children, potentially leading to an increased risk of fractures later in life. Cross-sex hormones can also affect a patient’s fertility, according to a handout from OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Some medical experts believe the use of puberty blockers on young children may place children on a fast track towards receiving other sex change procedures, children who might otherwise desist.
“Though many unhinged activists compromising the healthcare field think otherwise, children are not to be treated as science experiments,” Paxton continued in the letter. “Doctors and hospitals should not be pushing mutilative and irreversible ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that will negatively impact innocent children for the rest of their lives.”
The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), a leading medical organization which sets guidance for several hospitals, did away with all age restrictions in their recommendations for transgender operations for kids in 2022. WPATH also recognizes a “eunuch” gender identity, even as several European countries move away from offering transgender treatment to kids, calling them “experimental.” The American Medical Association (AMA), America’s medical licensing and lobbying group, has also issued statements calling on governors and states to “stop interfering in health care of transgender children.”
SCOOP: @KenPaxtonTX has launched an investigation into the child sex-change program at Texas Children’s Hospital, which I exposed through whistleblower reporting on Tuesday.
“Any ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that hurt our children constitute child abuse under Texas law.” pic.twitter.com/PdrWQLEvWh
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 19, 2023
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services determined that sex change surgeries for minors was child abuse in August 2021.
Other states, however, have moved to block parents from preventing their children from transitioning. Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth recently recommended that parents who withheld “gender affirming care” should “explicitly” be classified as child abusers.
Texas Children’s Hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.
