A new report shows that the largest children’s hospital in Texas—and the United States—restarted medical interventions for gender-confused children only three days after announcing they were stopping the practice.
Investigative journalist Christopher Rufo shared internal records from Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, revealing that the institution continued performing child gender mutilation surgeries.
The hospital claimed they were halting these procedures last March after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a legal opinion saying the medical treatments—including providing minors with sterilizing cross-sex hormones and surgically removing their healthy body parts—classify as child abuse.
TCH said they ended the practice to protect doctors and parents from the state.
“This step [to halt operations] was taken to safeguard our health care professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications,” the hospital wrote in a statement.
Despite this announcement, hospital records show that TCH and its partner, Baylor College of Medicine, allowed Dr. Kristy Rialon to “insert a non-biodegradable drug delivery implant” into an 11-year-old “female-to-male transgender person” three days later.
Rialon continued inserting these devices into children ranging from 11 to 15 years old who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder up to at least February of 2023.
Records show that another provider, Dr. Richard Ogden Roberts, was managing patients aged 12 to 17 years old diagnosed with gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder this month, including one case where a child was given hormone replacement therapy options. Case notes report that the child’s family was “dissatisfied with progress after over two years.”
In January 2023, TCH and Baylor hosted a presentation for doctors focused on the “medical and psychological care of gender-diverse youth.”
The presentation instructed doctors to begin administering cross-sex hormones to minors in early adolescence and to consider surgery on adolescents’ reproductive organs on a case-by-case basis.
Doctors were also told that individuals of any age range could legally change their name or present as the opposite sex in public.
Rufo shared a video featuring a psychiatrist working with TCH describing his response to a gender-confused child’s mother asking about her parental rights.
“You do have many parental rights, but I have to adhere to my own ethical standards as a physician, and I know [that] the best thing to do for this child, their mental health, and really even their risk of suicide is to … show them that respect of using the pronouns they go by.”
Another video showed Baylor College of Medicine ethics professor Claire Horner explaining how parental rights block “gender-affirming care” efforts.
“The biggest hang-ups are going to be … the parental rights issue,” said Horner. “Especially in Texas. I think the political climate is kind of shifting. There’s a big push this legislative session to increase parental rights and decrease access to gender-affirming care or education about gender identity [and] sexual orientation.”
After Rufo released his report, TCH removed Rialon’s biography page from its website.
The Texas House approved Senate Bill 14 last week, which will ban medical providers from prescribing minors with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilative surgeries.
The bill now heads to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk to be signed into law.
