On the same day that Texas A&M President Mark Welsh resigned amid controversy over LGBT course material, a College of Medicine professor postponed a mandatory session on “medical care for the LGBTQ+ patient population,” according to records obtained by Texas Scorecard.
On September 18, Dr. Robert Milman, a Clinical Associate Professor at the TAMU College of Medicine’s Department of Medical Education, announced that a mandatory September 23 session titled “HEAL: Medical care for the LGBTQ+ Patient Population” was moved to November 18 “due to unforeseen circumstances.” He wrote that the curriculum committee moved it.
His announcement came the same day TAMU announced Welsh resigned, an act that followed criticism over his handling of a TAMU children’s literature class that included how to introduce LGBT material to children.
The communication and records provided indicated this session was part of a course of study titled HEAL III. A Texas A&M Fall 2017 semester update for the class of 2020 identified HEAL as an acronym for Humanities, Ethics, Altruism & Leadership. The communication showed Dr. Milman as the HEAL director.
The Texas A&M College of Medicine offers HEAL as part of its Doctor of Medicine graduate program, and gives special emphasis to “the ethical and social aspects of medical practice,” through “lecture, discussion and small group case studies that focus on the humanistic concerns in modern medicine.”
According to records Texas Scorecard received and reviewed, the HEAL I course last fall promoted LGBT ideology, including gender mutilation and hormone manipulation procedures.
Students were assigned to read these papers, available at the U.S. National Library of Medicine:
Dr. Andre Van Mol, a board-certified family physician and transgenderism scholar with the American Academy of Medical Ethics, stated that “attempts to normalize violence” in sexual behavior is “a form of grooming.”
“Students, parents, faculty, and donors should be aware that there is no limit to this slippery slope of normalizing any and all sexual behaviors,” he told Texas Scorecard. “We can fully expect, unless there is sufficient opposition, that one day there will also be a mandatory seminar on pedophilia attempting to normalize it under the neologism of minor attracted persons.”
Texas Scorecard also reviewed a copy of a “Health Inequities 2: LGBTQ+ Small Group” discussion guide from October 30 of last year.
The first assigned reading was How to Close the LGBT Health Disparities Gap, a December 2009 piece from the left-wing Center for American Progress.
In it, CAP called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create an Office of LGBT Health and advance the LGBT ideology in healthcare. This would be achieved in several ways, including requesting that HHS-funded educational programs integrate “LGBT cultural competency in their curricula,” and promote such integration across other federal-taxpayer-funded healthcare operations.
Authors of the second assigned reading, the October 2022 article Cultural Competence in the Care of LGBTQ Patients, a peer-reviewed medical education article, outlined what this type of “care” looks like. Steps include offering brochures on “hormone therapy,” displaying LGBT symbols, and “maintain[ing] an open mind and avoid[ing] judgment regarding sexual orientation and practices.”
The authors also promoted gender mutilation and hormone manipulation techniques, including creating artificial sex organs and injecting hormones of the opposite sex into individuals.
The discussion guide offered two optional assignments. One is a recording from the Trans Health Coalition and the McMaster Medical Student Council, both in Canada. In it, medical students and Dr. Dustin Costescu, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, discuss pap smears for “trans individuals.”
The other optional assignment is a November 2013 TEDx presentation by pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Norman Spack, titled “How I help transgender teens become who they want to be.”
Dr. Spack advocated for using puberty blockers for minors around 12 years old, which he said “buys time” for decision making. At age 16 after “retesting,” a minor can be provided with hormones of the opposite sex, and then at age 18, there can be a surgical operation.
According to the April 2024 Cass Review, by Dr. Hilary Cass from the United Kingdom, an analysis of data “suggest[s] that puberty blockers are not buying time to think, given that the vast majority of those who start puberty suppression continue to masculinising/feminising hormones, particularly if they start earlier in puberty.”
The review continued that this was the basis for the UK High Court Ruling in Bell v. Tavistock which suggested that minors “would need to understand the consequences of a full transition pathway in order to consent to treatment with puberty blockers.”
Regarding Dr. Spack’s talk, the group discussion guide contains this question: “Do you think you’d be comfortable prescribing hormone therapy for transgender people before they go through puberty?”
The Cass Review reported these medications are licensed for patients who enter puberty too quickly, and to treat some cancers in or gynaecological issues in adults. Concerning its use for those with gender dysphoria, a University of York systematic review cited in the report “found no evidence” that the product “improve[s] body image or dysphoria, and very limited evidence for positive mental health outcomes, which without a control group could be due to placebo effect or concomitant psychological support.”
Additionally, the review noted that “blocking the release of these sex hormones could have a range of unintended and as yet unidentified consequences,” and “a known side effect of puberty blockers on mood is that it may reduce psychological functioning.”
In his presentation, Dr. Spack admitted that the gender dysphoria cases are “relatively rare,” but claimed that “between about age 10 to 12 in girls, 12 to 14 in boys … the child who says they are in the absolute wrong body is almost certain to be transgender and is extremely unlikely to change those feelings, no matter how anybody tries reparative therapy or any other noxious things.”
The 2024 Cass Review, however, noted “an increasing acceptance that people choose to detransition for many reasons.” Additionally, “there is a need for better services and pathways for this group, many of whom are living with the irreversible effects of transition and no clear way to access services.”
These types of procedures also do not deliver what’s promised. In 2022, Dr. Van Mol stated that it’s impossible to change sexes, and doing so doesn’t improve mental health.
In June 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a statewide ban on child gender mutilation procedures. It prohibits mutilative surgeries to “transition” minors, as well as chemical castration through puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
State lawmakers addressed this topic again in 2025. Abbott signed a measure outlawing gender ideology and DEI-related curriculum in K-12 schools and another law prohibiting state-funded mental health providers in the Rural Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program from offering services to minors that promote social transitioning.
This is not the first time Texas A&M has advanced the transgender ideology in healthcare. In February 2024, Texas A&M Student Health Services was found to have provided prescriptions for “hormone replacement therapies.” Months later, TAMU announced these services would no longer be provided.
In response to outcry over the LGBT content in the children’s literature course, the Texas A&M University System’s Board of Regents asked Chancellor Glenn Hegar to “audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws.”
Neither Texas A&M nor the Texas A&M University System responded to a request for comment.
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