The Murky Business of Transgender Medicine
I have reported on one of these programs, the pediatric gender clinic at Texas Children s Hospital. Last year, I published an investigation demonstrating that, though it had promised to shut down its program, Texas Children s had continued to administer hormone drugs to children as young as 11. Following the story, the state attorney general launched an investigation, and state legislators passed a bill, SB 14, prohibiting all transgender medical interventions on minors.
While these scandals caught the headlines, another story involving the same institution was brewing in the background: medical fraud.
According to a new whistleblower, doctors at Texas Children s Hospital were willing to falsify medical records and break the law to keep practicing gender-affirming care. Caught in the wave of ideological fervor, two of the hospital s prominent physicians, Richard Ogden Roberts and David Paul, cut corners and, according to the whistleblower, committed Medicaid fraud to secure funds for the hospital s child sex-change program.
(Texas Children s Hospital, Roberts, and Paul did not respond to a request for comment.)
This is a story of fanaticism, hubris, and the murky business of transgender medicine. It would have remained hidden, except for the courage of two people inside the hospital, a surgeon named Eithan Haim and a nurse who has now decided to come forward. Both have risked much to alert the public to the barbarism that is occurring at the nation s largest, and arguably most prestigious, children s hospital.
Christopher Rufo.