Dr. Ximena Lopez
Dr. Ximena Lopez, the doctor who led UT Southwestern’s program for transgender youth today (Wednesday, March 16) filed a petition in Dallas County court to find out why the hospital ended the Genecis Program for transgender youth so abruptly last November, according to a report by NBCDFW Channel 5.
In the petition, Dr. Lopez said the hospital’s decision to end the program offering gender-affirming healthcare to trans youth violates the university’s nondiscrimination policy and prevents her from treating patients according to her independent medical judgment.
Sources had indicated to Dallas Voice that the decision to close Genecis was made under pressure from right-wing politicians, and the New York Times recently reported that pressure came from Gov. Greg Abbott who, last month, claimed that providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender children is child abuse and directed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate those families providing such access for their trans children.
Abbott’s directive was based on a non-binding opinion issued the day before by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. That opinion has been widely discredited by experts, and last Friday, March 11, in a lawsuit filed by one family under investigation Travis County District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued an injunction halting all such investigations. The March 11 injunction expanded an early injunction Meachum had issued in the same lawsuit that applied only to the plaintiff family. Paxton has appealed Meachum’s injunction to the Texas Third Court of Appeals, the same appellate court that dismissed his appeal of Meachum’s initial injunction.
A psychologist is also a plaintiff in that lawsuit; she has said that Abbott’s directive for all mandatory reporters — professionals such as doctors and teachers who are required by law to report instances of child abuse or suspected child abuse to DFPS — to report families and doctors providing gender-affirming healthcare would force her to violate her professional ethics.
Genecis, which began seven years ago, was the only program in the region created specifically to provide gender-affirming care to minors. Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston last week stopped providing hormone therapy to trans children because of Abbott’s order.
— Tammye Nash
