Recommendations of the Editorial team
A hospital in Houston, Texas, has been required to do so as part of a settlement with the state. to open the first “Detransition Clinic” in the USA – as a consequence of the treatment of children with gender reassignment measures.
Texas Children’s Hospital must also pay the state $10 million, and five doctors have lost their licenses as a result of the settlement. This emerges from an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, as reported by the Texas Tribune.
“Today is a monumental day in the fight against the radical transgender movement,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement Friday. “I commend Texas Children’s Hospital for changing course and committing to being part of the solution – by agreeing to a first-of-its-kind Detransition Clinic that will provide free care to those who have fallen victim to a twisted, morally bankrupt transgender ideology.”
Five years of free treatment
The settlement requires the Detransition Clinic to provide free medical care to patients “who have undergone gender reassignment surgery” for the next five years. In 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned hormone therapy for transgender children.
The hospital called the settlement a “difficult decision” in a statement, adding: “To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation… We are proud to know that we have always put our mission above politics and that we have followed the law and will continue to do so.”
Dallas House Representative and Texas LGBTQ Caucus Chairwoman Jessica Gonzalez called the comparison “shameful” and said it “furthers an agenda to erase transgender people from society’s gaze.”
Criticism of state intervention
“Using a settlement to force a hospital to create an ideologically charged clinic opens the door to further government intrusion into medical practice, to dangerous stigmatization that is truly damaging to young Texans, and – unfortunately – to even more deaths in our nation’s suicide epidemic,” Gonzalez said in a statement, adding that the cost of the “Detransition Clinic” would divert funds that should be going toward children’s cancer treatment.
