Following Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s directive for the state to investigate whether some transgender procedures on kids constituted child abuse, a pediatric hospital in Texas has announced that it will stop performing “gender-confirming therapies” for children.
Texas Children’s Hospital, America’s biggest pediatric hospital, made the announcement on Friday, saying the move was aimed at protecting health care professionals and families.
“The mission of Texas Children’s Hospital is to create a healthier future for all children, including transgender children, within the bounds of the law,” a statement from the hospital said. “This step was taken to safeguard our health care professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications.”
Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general celebrated the move. “Glad to hear that today Texas Children’s Hospital halted their child-abuse procedures,” he tweeted.
The announcement came after Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said that he was ordering Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate whether “so-called ‘sex change’ procedures” were child abuse.
“[I]t is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen,” Abbott said in his letter announcing the move to investigate.
Conservative pro-family groups welcomed the news saying the decision was driven by “strong political leadership.”
“This is welcome news, but conservatives need to understand why it happened. Texas Children’s Hospital didn’t just decide to stop castrating children out of the goodness of their hearts. They were pressured by strong political leadership,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told The Daily Wire.
He added that Republican governors should take similar actions and work to pass legislation banning “experimental gender transition procedures.”
“Politics isn’t downstream from culture – politics drives culture. Republican governors should learn the lesson here and work in their states to pass legislation like Arkansas’ SAFE Act, which would once and for all ban subjecting minors to these experimental gender transition procedures,” he argued.
Legal challenges to Abbott’s directive are ongoing as last week a Democrat judge placed a temporary stop to the investigation of one such case of the parents of a teen who identifies as transgender.
The Biden administration also came out against Abbott’s actions, calling it “government overreach.”
“This is government overreach at its worst,” a statement from Biden said. “Like so many anti-transgender attacks proliferating in states across the country, the Governor’s actions callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points.”
Biden added that child welfare organization should “expand access to gender-affirming care for transgender children.”
Back in November, the GENder Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program at the Dallas Health Center was closed down. GENECIS was part of the hospital’s “gender-affirming care” program.
While the official unit was shut down, The Texas Tribune reported that, that “new patients will be seen in ‘appropriate specialty departments’ and offered mental health and counseling services.”