Texas Children’s Hospital pursued transgender procedures with ‘religious-like fervor’
Breccan F. Thies
Texas Children’s Hospital has been performing transgender procedures on children after it publicly stated it would stop, according to a new whistleblower report.
Documents obtained by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo show the hospital continuing to offer transgender drugs such as puberty blockers to children.
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Physicians at the hospital received training in January 2023 on gender-related treatment. During the “Medical and Psychological Care of Gender-Diverse Youth” presentation, which was put on by TCH and Baylor College of Medicine for physicians, doctors were advised on the process for the medical interventions.
They were told to start adolescent patients with drugs like hormone therapies and puberty blockers and then assess genital mutilation surgeries once they reach adulthood. According to the presentation, surgeries may be appropriate for adolescents “on a case-by-case basis.”
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“Those practitioners that are pursuing so-called gender-affirming care are undermining public trust by engaging in what must be considered experimental therapy that is clearly harming a number of children and is without valid evidence for helping children with severe psychological disturbances,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, told the Washington Examiner. “To pursue these treatments in the face of their own organizations deciding to refrain from this medically unproven approach suggest the actions of those driven by religious-like fervor.”
Medical records show some doctors at TCH were providing these procedures and drugs to extremely young children.
Dr. Kristy Rialon, an assistant professor at Baylor who practices medicine at TCH, has provided procedures to patients as young as 11 years old, according to medical records.
TCH Dr. Richard Ogden Roberts said he privately asks children about other names or pronouns they might use, but does not tell the child’s parents, because “not every patient who is gender-diverse may have that safe environment at home.”
In a separate presentation on medical ethics for Baylor College of Medicine students, one psychiatrist who works with the TCH program described how to get around parental rights arguments by threatening parents with the suicide of their own child unless they pursue the gender-related treatment medical route, including using preferred pronouns and names.
“At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission is to provide high-quality care for all patients,” a TCH spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Throughout the policy debate surrounding gender medicine, our healthcare professionals have always and will continue to prioritize the care of our patients within the bounds of the law.”
In March of last year, TCH announced it would halt its child transition program after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) directed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the procedures as “child abuse.”
At the time, TCH said, “This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential legal ramifications.”
On Wednesday, the Texas legislature passed a law outlawing transgender procedures for children statewide, which awaits Abbott’s signature. Rufo told the Washington Examiner he is calling on Lone Star Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, to investigate TCH, adding, “There need to be consequences.”
Paxton recently launched an investigation into the Austin-based Dell Children’s Medical Center for similar reasons.
Many American medical organizations promote the gender-related treatment model as “medically necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.”
However, a review of the research conducted by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service found “limited evidence” of the efficacy of the gender-related treatment route because all studies were “uncontrolled, observational studies, and all outcomes of very low certainty.”
“Any potential benefits of treatment must be weighed against the largely unknown long-term safety profile of these treatments,” the review concluded.
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In March, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board concluded that “the knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known.”
“This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known,” a report stated.