Texas Children’s Hospital, the largest pediatric hospital in the U.S., has agreed to create what state officials described as the country’s first dedicated clinic for patients seeking to detransition after undergoing “gender-transition” procedures, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced May 15.
The clinic will be established as part of a settlement resolving a yearslong investigation by Paxton’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice into the Houston hospital’s former pediatric “gender-affirming care” program. The investigation began in 2023 after Texas enacted a law banning medical providers from facilitating “gender-transition” procedures for minors.
According to a press release from Paxton’s office, under the settlement, Texas Children’s will fund the new detransition clinic for its first five years of operation, offering medical care at no cost to patients during that period. The hospital will also pay more than $10 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to secure insurance coverage for “gender-transition” procedures for children and terminate five doctors involved in the prior program.
In the release, Paxton described the clinic as a “first-of-its-kind” facility that will “provide free care to those who have been victimized by twisted, morally bankrupt transgender ideology.”
“Today is a monumental day in the fight to stop the radical transgender movement,” he said. “This historic settlement reflects an institutional and fundamental cultural shift away from radical ‘gender’ ideology.”
Texas Children’s has denied wrongdoing. In a statement reported by The Texas Tribune, the hospital said it made the “difficult decision” to settle and said the agreement allows it to end a legal dispute it described as “wrought with falsehoods and distractions.”
Chloe Cole — a detransitioner and activist who says she was prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones before undergoing a double mastectomy at age 15 — praised the detransition clinic in a May 26 Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
“As someone who started down the sex-change path at age 12, I can’t overstate how much this new clinic is needed,” Cole wrote.
Citing a Do No Harm investigation, Cole said nearly 14,000 children in the U.S. received medical interventions to “change” their genders between 2019 and 2023. She argued that the true number is likely higher because the investigation did not include data from every insurance company or account for how some patients pay out of pocket.
“How can these kids consent to all this while their minds and bodies are still developing?” Cole wrote. “I can personally attest that vulnerable children and their families are being misled and manipulated. I can also attest that as they grow older, more and more of these young people will ask: How do I go back?”
Cole, who is now 21, said she has struggled to find medical care since beginning her detransition, including ongoing treatment needed for scars and injuries from her double mastectomy, as well as therapy for what she described as “PTSD-like symptoms and flashbacks.”
“I’ve talked with hundreds of detransitioners across America. We’re all heartened by the news out of Texas,” Cole wrote. “But we’re angry, too. It should have never taken this long to create a clinic dedicated to some of America’s most vulnerable young patients. It’s a medical and moral crime that any child was subjected to a sex change in the first place — and that many are still being pushed down this painful road.”