AUSTIN, TX — In a groundbreaking development signaling the continued national shift away from pediatric gender medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital has agreed to establish what is expected to become the nation’s first dedicated detransitioner clinic. This move comes as part of a legal settlement with the state of Texas and the Department of Justice.
The agreement comes after years of mountain scrutiny surrounding pediatric “gender-affirming care,” including allegations that doctors, therapists, and counselors were grooming children to change their gender. Additionally, the settlement requires that five different doctors be fired after allegations surfaced that they were utilizing false diagnoses codes.
Under the settlement, Texas Children’s Hospital will create a clinic providing care and support for young people seeking to detransition after undergoing medical transition procedures. Notably, the clinic will also be required to provide free services for patients for the first five years in operation.
Beth Parlato, Senior Legal Counsel at Independent Women’s Law Center, said, “This settlement underscores the growing legal and medical reckoning surrounding harmful cross-sex interventions on minors. Children who have undergone irreversible and experimental procedures deserve long-term care and support. The creation of a detransition clinic recognizes a reality that has been ignored: vulnerable minors experience profound regret and permanent medical consequences. This settlement is a stark reminder that political ideology can never supersede the legal and ethical duty to protect children from irreversible harm.”
“In addition to delivering direct medical care for detransitioners, this clinic will help establish a better model of care for detransitioners around the world, whose health has been neglected and underresearched. We can only hope to see their model succeed and be replicated around the country and around the world,” said Neeraja Deshpande, policy analyst and Independent Women.
This announcement is another step in a broader shift that marks a decisive break from years of ideological medicine—and a turning point towards biological reality, medical ethics, and the protection of children from body mutilation and irreversible harm.
Independent Women’s ambassador program has played an important role in elevating the stories and voices of detransitioners—young people who were misled by then-trusted medical professionals into undergoing life-altering interventions to appear as the opposite sex, and who now grapple with the physical and psychological consequences and complications of these medical decisions every single day.
“The detransition clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital is a welcome step in the right direction. We must provide comprehensive, reality-based support to the young people who were misled that “sex changes” were not only possible—but would resolve their complex psychological distress,” said Soren Aldaco, detransitioner and Independent Women Ambassador. “To illustrate the fairness of this settlement: Texas Children’s took many of us to the party—a party they knew was developmentally inappropriate and seeded with lifelong psycho-social and physical health complications—and now it’s their job to get us home safe. I look forward to seeing the settlement’s terms fully enforced, with the highest quality of care imaginable.”
WATCH PRISHA’S IWFEATURES’ STORY
“As a detransitioner I think it’s astonishing news. People like myself—detransitioners—have gone before the legislature to testify, to raise the needs of detransitioners, and the medical care we need for the aftermath of transition, and the complications that often come from taking hormones or having surgery,” said Prisha Mosley, detransitioner and Independent Women Ambassador on NTD News. “I hope that a lot of research will be done and more informed consent will be given. Hopefully the doctors that treat us will learn from what was done in the first place. I find this to be exciting news.
WATCH CLAIRE’S IWFEATURES’ STORY
“I view this settlement as a long-overdue acknowledgment that there are young people who were seriously harmed by pediatric transition medicine. Many of us were fast-tracked onto irreversible treatments while struggling with trauma, mental health issues, abuse histories, or ordinary adolescent distress,” said Claire Abernathy, detransitioner and Independent Women Ambassador. “We were told these interventions were life-saving and evidence-based, only to be left dealing with permanent consequences after the enthusiasm and slogans faded. The requirement that Texas Children’s Hospital open a detransition clinic and remove doctors who transitioned children recognizes that accountability and ongoing care are necessary. Detransitioners need real medical support for the damage we were left with. I was put on testosterone as a young teenager and now live with consequences I will carry for the rest of my life. No settlement can undo that, but acknowledging the harm and working to correct it is a necessary first step.”
Identity Crisis: Real Stories About Escaping Gender Ideology:
Since 2022, Independent Women’s Features (IW Features), the grassroots storytelling and original journalism arm of Independent Women, has worked to expose the irreversible harm of so-called “gender-affirming care” through its “Identity Crisis: Real Stories About Escaping Gender Ideology” series.
From “top surgery,” nipples peeling off, clitoral growth, trapped milk ducts, and hairy bodies, Identity Crisis documentaries bring to light the graphic stories of young adults now reckoning with the physical and emotional scars of gender ideology:
- Prisha Mosley’s Story Pt. 1 | Mentally Ill Teen Betrayed by Health Professionals Who Recommended Testosterone and ‘Top Surgery’
- Prisha Mosley’s Story Pt. 2 | A Detransitioner’s Pregnancy Journey
- Soren Aldaco’s Story | How One Detransitioner Found Peace Outside of Medicalization
- Claire and Carrie Abernathy’s Story Pt. 1 | Detransitioner and Mother Were Sold the Lie of Gender Transition — Now They’re Exposing the Real Costs
- Luke Healy Was Groomed to Transition. His Mom Refused to Play Along
The Tide is Turning on Child Mutilation:
Earlier this year, the American Association of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association concurred what Independent Women has been sounding the alarm on all along—that pediatric gender surgeries should not be a common procedure offered to minors and should never have been normalized as “care.” This announcement came on the heels of a landmark legal victory as detransitioner Fox Varian secured a $2 million settlement in New York after suing her practitioners, who had allegedly groomed her as a vulnerable teen into thinking her mental distress was due to gender dysphoria.
The case signals what many have long predicted: the reckoning over pediatric gender medicine will ultimately be settled in the courts.
In December, Independent Women applauded the Department of Health and Human Services for proposing several policy positions by moving to bar hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on minors as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid, carrying out President Trump’s executive order to end the surgical and chemical mutilation of minors
LEFT: Prisha Mosley, Independent Women ambassador and detransitioner
RIGHT: Mosley joined by other detransitioners for the FTC workshop, “The Dangers of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors”
Last summer, several of the detransitioners spoke at the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop, titled “The Dangers of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors,” held in Washington, D.C. The workshop aimed to shed light on the serious risks and false claims regarding so-called “gender-affirming care” and its harmful effects on consumers—particularly children.
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