Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — U.S. Senate candidate and notorious TDS (transgender derangement syndrome) sufferer — announced Wednesday, Aug. 5, that his “historic settlement agreement” with Texas Children’s Hospital “has been fully executed.”
Paxton, who has repeatedly used and abused the power and resources of the Office of the Attorney General in his campaign for U.S. Senate, had sued Texas Children’s for claims brought under the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act and the federal False Claims Act for allegedly fraudulently billed Texas Medicaid for what Paxton termed “unallowable and illegal ‘gender transition’ interventions.”
By May, Paxton had forced Texas Children’s to agree to a settlement that “compels the permanent and irrevocable termination of privileges of multiple physicians and requires Texas Children’s to amend their bylaws to specify that performance of gender-transition interventions triggers automatic relinquishment of medical staff privileges.”
The settlement also requires Texas Children’s to pay a total of $10 million “to resolve these claims” and to create a “detransition clinic” that has to be opened by the end of October.
The clinic will be there to serve all those hundreds of trans people Paxton and his right-wingers insist are standing in line and demanding the ability to “detransition.”
(Just FYI: A report by Fenway Health shows that about 13 percent of people who transition choose to “detransition” — mainly (83 percent) due to discrimination, stigma, family pressure and increased vulnerability to violence include sexual assault. AND the Fenway report notes that “a significant portion of those individuals later retransition.”)
In press release announcing that the settlement has been “fully executed,” Paxton called it “a resounding defeat for the radical gender ideology that has preyed on Texas children under the guise of ‘care.’”
On the other hand, studies conducted by actual scientists and medical professionals (rather than made-up crap by conscience-less right-wing politicians using transgender children as disposable tools in their never-ending quest for more power and more money) and which actually listen to the factual testimony of transgender children themselves show that gender-affirming care for minors leads to significant drops in depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation (according to the National Institutes of Health), higher life satisfaction, reduced gender dysphoria and better social functioning (The Mayo Clinic) and significant lack of regret over accessing such treatment (Journal of the American Medical Association).
But yeah, sure, let’s ignore all those medical professionals and scientists and let a corrupt politician — a man who spent nearly nine years under federal indictment, who was impeached by a Texas House of Representatives controlled by his own political party, is under investigation by federal officials over allegations leveled by members of his own staff that he abused the power of the Office of Attorney General, who has been caught at least twice cheating on his wife and who is, at present, going through a divorce which his soon-to-be-former wife said was based on “biblical reasons” (aka he cheated on her) — be in charge of our children’s medical care and mental well being.
By the way, the latest polls all show Paxton trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico in the race to replace John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate.
— Tammye Nash