Texas Attorney General — and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate — Ken Paxton today issued a press release lauding the opening of what a press release from his office calls “the nation’s first-ever detransition clinic” and claiming credit for the facility.
Texas Children’s Hospital opened the “Detransition Clinic” as part of a requirement in the hospital’s settlement agreement in a lawsuit Paxton filed.
According to Paxton’s press release, “The Detransition Clinic is a multidisciplinary clinic that provides medical care to patients who previously underwent gender-transition intervention. It offers detransition-related medical care to patients through age 21, along with detransition-related obstetric and gynecologic care to patients older than 21. Because the care is multidisciplinary, patients may receive services at different Texas Children’s location, depending on their individual needs and the services recommended by their care team.”
Bragging that it was “my settlement” with Texas Children’s, Paxton pledged to “ensure that this clinic provides the care and support that victims of the radical left’s gender ideology deserve. Together we will protect our children and defeat the dangerous ideology that has inflicted irreversible harm on innocent kids.”
Paxton did not, however, he intends to keep his pledge considering that, as of Jan. 1 he will no longer be Texas attorney general and so will no longer have the power of that office to abuse in attacking people. He also did not offer any pledges on protecting children from actual danger and harm — like protecting them from being shot to death in their classrooms in mass school shootings. Or like protecting children from actual predatory pedophiles, such as Adam Hoffman, the man who repeatedly raped a child over the course of three years, but then, under a deal with Paxton that allowed him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges after continually raping a child for three years, was allowed to go free after serving only one day in prison and who does not have to register as a sex offender.
According to research by The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, there are about 2.8 million people in the U.S. that identify as transgender, which is about 1 percent of people ages 13 and older. According to surveys like the U.S. Transgender Survey, between 8 and 13 percentof those responding to the survey said they had detransitioned at some point, many of them (62 percent) only temporarily.
And research from groups like the National Center for Transgender Equality indicates that most people who detransition do so because of family or social pressure, the discrimination and harassment trans people face and access to and cost of ongoing treatment.
The settlement also requires Texas Children’s to pay the state of Texas $10 million, to permanently revoke privileges for several physicians and to fully fund the Detransition Clinic for the first five years at no cost to patients.
Just a little more information to bring the whole issue into clear focus.
Ken Paxton claims he is protecting children by interfering in the private medical care of certain children, care that has been approved by their parents and recommended by their doctors.
An estimated 480 children and teens ages 0-19 die by guns each year in Texas (about 61 percent in homicides and 33 percent as suicides and the remaining 6 percent accidental or undetermined).
That means an estimated 5,280 or more children or teens have died by gun violence since Ken Paxton became AG on Jan. 5, 2025. At least 27 of those children died in mass shootings in their classrooms (Robb Elementary in Uvalde on May 24, 2022: 19 children and 2 teachers; Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas on May 18, 2018: eight children and two teachers).
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center, at least 627,927 children in Texas were victims of sexual abuse. That’s an average of about 62,800 kids each year, which would add up to nearly 800,000 Texas children who have been sexually abused since Ken Paxton took office.
Paxton, for his part, has made no effort to stem the tide of gun violence claiming our children. Instead, his legal actions have consistently opposed gun control measures and challenged restrictions on carrying firearms, including filing numerous lawsuits protecting or expanding firearm access and fighting regulations.
“The more you know….”
— Tammye Nash