Nation’s Largest Children’s Hospital Will Halt Transgender Medical Procedures

Texas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s largest children’s hospital, will stop providing transgender medical procedures for children — for the second time.

In a memo shared to Twitter, the hospital’s CEO, Mark Wallace, shared that the hospital will work with patients and families to “manage the discontinuation of hormone therapies.” The memo also stated the hospital will work to connect patients with treatment services outside of Texas.

“The transition we will embark on is going to be immensely heart-wrenching, but we will lead through this adversity and navigate these next steps together with grace, love, and compassion like we always do,” CEO said.

The decision comes following the passage of Senate Bill 14, which bans transgender medical treatments for children and will go into effect on September 1 if Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signs it into law.

In March 2022 the hospital announced it would stop providing hormonal therapy to children after Gov. Abbot called on the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents who “provide gender-affirming care to their children,” the Texas Tribune reported.

However, documents obtained by Christopher F. Rufo, who is with the Manhattan Institute, showed the hospital secretly continued to perform gender transitioning services, including implanting puberty blockers.

In his reporting, Rufo stated that Harvard-trained surgeon Dr. Kristy Rialon actually performed a surgery on an “11 year-old female-to-male transgender person” three days after the hospital announced it would cease to provide “gender-affirming” care:

The records indicate that Rialon inserted and removed “non-biodegradable drug delivery implant[s]” for “gender dysphoria in pediatric patient[s]” throughout 2022 and 2023—including one procedure on an 11-year-old “female-to-male transgender person,” listed in records for three days after the hospital had announced that it had stopped performing “gender-affirming care.”

A whistleblower from the hospital said “gender-affirming” care is highly lucrative. “It’s like $70,000 to $80,000 dollars per kid if they go through with the whole thing—all the pharmacology drugs, all these companies that are making millions of dollars,” the whistleblower told Rufo.

Another point the whistleblower brought up is that it’s easy for children to access the criteria for diagnosing gender identity dysphoria, which is established by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, online:

These kids get coached on exactly what to say through Reddit and all these sites. They know exactly the verbiage to use. They just have to establish care with Dr. Roberts, he has a conversation with them, and he essentially starts them on puberty blockers, almost immediately.

The whistleblower told Rufo that Dr. Richard Ogden, who manages patients aged 12 to 17 with gender dysphoria,  will do “whatever he can to make sure that they are happy, at least externally happy, because I’m absolutely certain that they’re not internally happy.”

Last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital. The purpose is to see if they are “actively engaging in illegal behavior and performing gender transitioning procedures on children.” He requested 25 different document types relating to gender-affirming care from the hospital.