Federal prosecutors have charged a surgeon in Texas who were accused of receiving and sharing private medical information about gender transfer treatment for minors in one of the country’s largest hospitals. Is
Surgeon, Dr. Ethon Ham, was charged last May for four counts of acquiring, under the false excuse of personal medical information from an online system at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston’s US District Court. He last two years after working there, requested access to the hospital record database in 2023, and claimed that he needed information to provide “adult care services”.
The doctor took information on the health care of the children who hired the transfer services and revealed this information to a conservative activist Christopher Rufo. After that, Mr. Rufo published an article stating that the hospital continues to take care of transgender to the minor after announcing the elimination of the practice.
He said in a telephone interview with his suburban Dallas home on Saturday, 34 -year -old Dr. Hem, who confessed to revealing the records. He called himself a whistle and said he had re -prepared patients’ records to hide any identified information.
The prosecution did not provide any explanation about the allegations, and Dr. Ham said he was relieved and surprised that he had done so. He said he had to thank President Trump, “100 percent.”
“He is my man,” he said.
The Texas Children’s Hospital said in an e -mail statement that it would “delay and respect the prosecution’s decision”, which was announced on Friday.
The LGBTQ lawyer group, equality Texas spokesman, Jonathan Gooch said the dismissal of the allegations, especially in Texas, was another attack on transgender rights.
Over the past few years, the state has enforced the rules that target transgender people, including one that prevents transgender athletes from playing on kindergarten from kindergarten from kindergarten to girls and women’s sports teams. Advocate groups say these laws have had severe consequences for the trans community.
In the states that anti -transgender legislation increase, the rate of suicide efforts by transgender and non -binary youth increases. For a study Referred by the Trever Project, a LGBTQ rescue from suicide.
Mr Gooch said, “I think this incident, with the exhibition of private medical data, has eliminated a lot of confidence between the LGBTQ people and their doctors in Texas, which is such an important relationship. “ “I think it is alarming to see a clear confirmation of anti -transition monitoring from the Justice Department. If it is legitimate, what else is legitimate?
In the first week of his new term, Mr. Trump has shifted to the transgender and other LGBT Q to eliminate many reservations for people who were established under President Joseph R. Biden Junior.
Mr Trump has ordered that government agencies recognize only the genre that was assigned to a person at birth, and that he is a man or a woman. He instructed federal agencies to stop transgender women from prisons such as “intimate single sexual places”.
A serious debate about providing gender transfer treatment to minors is underway across the country, including in states like Tennessee, which has banned treatment which is now being considered by the US Supreme Court. The arguments in this case were heard in December.
In Texas, gender transfer care has been controversial for years. The state is at least 26 since 2021, which has partially or total ban on the treatment of minors.
In 2023, the state prohibited doctors from giving patients under the age of 18 from giving puberty blockers, hormone therapy or transfer surgery. Doctors who violate this law are at risk of losing medical licenses, and health insurance has been prevented from covering the treatment cost.
Texas’s Supreme Court upheld the move last year. And in October, the Attorney General of the state, Ken Picterson, prosecuted a Dallas specialist who accused him of violating the law of sexually transferring the minors. The case is pending.
He said that for Dr. Ham, the information that a worker’s decision to leak private medical records was easy, as he felt that the hospital and his doctors were hurting the children and knew the public. Needed
When Dr. Ham first heard that his fellow transgender children at the Texas Children’s Hospital are treating children, gender transfer care is legal. But in early 2022, Government Greg Abbott ordered the state’s Child Protection Agency to investigate the care of youth transgender as a “abuse of children” and said that any person was a child’s case. The person who failed to report will face a criminal fine.
H weekends later, to protect herself and her patients from legal claims, the Texas Children’s Hospital announced that she would stop taking care of the minorities for gender transfer.
Dr. Hem said he now believes that the Trump administration will ban the care of the national level, so “the most radical surgery will eventually end, and these people can get the help needed to live a normal life. “ He said he believes that those who believe that they are transgender are only needed mental health care, and there is no bloating of puberty medicines or surgery.
However, the American Academy of Pediatrics says these treatments may be essential to the treatment of gender -dysphoria, which is a psychological problem when a person’s body is not consistent with their gender identity. The organization has Ordered to review The data and research available on transgender care, so that they can update their guidelines for this exercise.
Genetic surgery is very low for adolescents, but surgical procedures have become more common for older adolescents.
After Dr. Ham was charged last summer, some Republican politicians took interest in the matter. Texas Senator Ted Cruz Sent a letter Almadar S Hamdani, who was then a US lawyer in the southern district of Texas, expressed concern that the matter could be politically encouraged.
Dr. Ham said that he had discussed the issue last summer at a meeting of a conservative legal lawyer group, with Senator Josh Holly, with the Republican of Missouri, with the Republican of Missouri, which was a counter -transgender law. Promotion of building.
Because of this, regardless of that the charges were made, Dr. Ham called the development “a miracle”. If he was sentenced, he would have to face 10 years in prison.
