Texas Children’s Hospital has officially opened its first-of-its-kind detransition clinic under a settlement it reached with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in May.
Paxton, who is also the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Texas, announced the opening of the clinic on Tuesday.
“BREAKING: The nation’s first-ever Detransition Clinic is now open as a result of my historic settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital,” he wrote on X.
An accompanying press release from his office described the new care center as “a multidisciplinary clinic that provides medical care to patients who previously underwent gender-transition interventions.”
Patients can receive detransition-related medical care through age 21, while detransition-related obstetric and gynecologic care is offered to patients older than 21. Paxton’s office added that patients may receive services at different Texas Children’s locations, depending on their individual needs and care team recommendations.
The clinic is a major pillar of the settlement, which additionally required the hospital to pay $10 million for claims brought by Paxton under the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act for billing Texas Medicaid for “unallowable and illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions.”
Multiple physicians were also stripped of their medical privileges for performing mutilating treatments on minors.
Texas Children’s previously offered a range of controversial services to gender dysphoric minors seeking to “change their gender,” including puberty blockers — medications intended to “pause” puberty, and hormone therapy — hormones including testosterone and estrogen used to promote the development of physical characteristics associated with the opposite sex.
The settlement also permanently prohibited Texas Children’s from performing surgical procedures on minors, which can sterilize and remove healthy tissue from patients.
