Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Audio By Carbonatix
Editor’s Note, 5/15/2026, 12:24 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a response from LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas.
A hospital in Houston will create Texas’ first “detransition” clinic and terminate physicians after reaching a $10 million settlement with the state for providing gender affirming care to minors.
On Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the settlement with Texas Children’s Health Hospital. The hospital will pay the state $10 million for services charged to Texas Medicaid, cease gender-transition care for minors and offer detransitioning services free of charge for the first five years of the clinic’s operation, according to a release from Paxton’s office.
The settlement is the result of a multi-year investigation by the attorney general’s office in coordination with the Department of Justice. Paxton’s release states that the investigation found that “ideologically-motivated” physicians at Texas Children’s performed “unallowable and illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions, including by using false diagnosis codes.”
In a statement to the Houston Chronicle, Texas Children’s said that the investigation had been marred by an “unconcionable campaign of mistruths and mischaracterizations” and asserted all procedures had been in line with the law.
“Today is a monumental day in the fight to stop the radical transgender movement. This historic settlement reflects an institutional and fundamental cultural shift away from radical ‘gender’ ideology. In addition to helping establish the first-ever Detransition Clinic and securing millions, this settlement will ensure that the deranged child mutilators who hurt our kids are fired and held accountable,” Paxton wrote in a release. “I applaud Texas Children’s Hospital for changing course and committing to being a part of the solution by agreeing to form a first-of-its kind Detransition Clinic that will help provide free care to those who have been victimized by twisted, morally bankrupt transgender ideology. Under my watch, I will investigate and bring the full force of the law against any Texas hospital that abuses children with harmful medical interventions to ‘transition’ kids.”
As part of the settlement, Texas Children’s will fire and irrevocably terminate the privileges of five physicians, who Paxton’s office described as “woke” in the release. The hospital will also amend its bylaws to provide for the immediate termination of privileges for physicians found to violate Texas’ 2023 ban on providing gender-transitioning services to minors.
In line with national GOP movements, Paxton has gone after institutions and physicians for providing gender-affirming care to minors since the law was passed. Paxton sued two Dallas psychiatrists in 2024 over “first-of-their-kind” accusations of illegally providing hormone blockers to minors and billing Texas Medicaid.
Paxton also issued a legal opinion in March based on the 2023 ban that prevents state-licensed mental health providers from advising or facilitating gender transitions for minors.
Nearly every major medical association has backed gender-affirming care for minors and pushed back on what some in the industry describe as a dangerous government overreach. In 2021, the American Medical Association wrote that “forgoing gender-affirming care can have tragic health consequences, both mental and physical” in an open letter to states advocating for the practice.
In a statement, LGBTQ rights group Equality Texas accused Texas Children’s Hospital of “choosing politics over patients.”
“Paxton is blackmailing a hospital system into creating a resource that no one is asking for,” Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas, said. “It ignores the actual science and years of data about the overwhelming benefits of gender-affirming care, and it completely disregards the huge number of trans people who owe their lives to the very care Paxton is opposing. It is embarrassing that a hospital once revered for its care has lost its integrity and put politics over patients.”
