Fight over trans medical care is at the core of leaked Houston health records case

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A doctor says the government wants to punish him for calling attention to wrongdoing. Advocates say the families of trans kids are the ones at risk.

Medical records from Texas Children's Hospital in Houston are at the core of the case over privacy, a case that also centers on a debate over care provided to trans children and teenagers.As the Texas Legislature considered banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatment for trans kids last year, a Houston doctor breached the record system of Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston — the largest pediatric hospital in the country.

Meanwhile, Haim is being hailed as a martyr by conservatives in Texas and beyond who assert he is a victim of political persecution. On the conversative podcast circuit and elsewhere, they call transition-related care for kids child abuse and describe the doctors and parents that provide it as abusers.

Transition-related care covers a wide range of treatments. It can include such social steps as adopting new pronouns or changing one's style of dress. It can also mean medical interventions such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries, though those are rarer for children. These treatments are for gender dysphoria, the distress that arises when a person’s gender identity does not align with their birth-assigned sex.

Instead, he turned over redacted versions of the medical records to conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo, who published an article in May 2023 reporting that the hospital continued administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors and linking to the documents. In the report, Rufo names physicians and details the types of procedures they were conducting. The leaked documents are no longer available though that article.

Harrison told The Texas Tribune that the support for Haim is indicative of the ways Texas is “trying to protect children.” Propelled by similar statements about “protecting children,”has received significant attention in the Texas legislature over the past few years — a sentiment that has inspired actions like Haim’s.

However, prosecutors have questioned Haim’s motives. The indictment argues, Haim committed “malicious harm” to the hospital and its patients. The hospital faced “financial loss, medical delays … as well as threats and harm to its patients and esteemed physicians.”

 

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Fight over trans medical care is at the core of leaked Houston health records caseA doctor says the government wants to punish him for calling attention to wrongdoing. Advocates say the families of trans kids are the ones at risk.
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