Federal prosecutors have withdrawn the charges against a surgeon in Texas who was accused of obtaining and sharing private medical information about treatments related to gender transition for minors in one of the largest children’s hospitals in the country.
The surgeon, Dr. Eithan Haim, was accused last May in the United States District Court in Houston for four positions to obtain, under false claims, personal medical information online system at the Texas Children’s Hospital. According to the accusation, he requested access to the hospital record database in 2023, two years after he worked for the last time there, claiming that he needed the information to provide “adult care services.”
The doctor took the medical care information of the children who had received services related to the transition and revealed that information to a conservative activist, Christopher Rufo. Mr. Rufo then published an article by saying that the hospital continued to provide transgender attention to the minors after having announced the end of the practice.
Dr. Haim, 34, who acknowledged revealing the records, declared himself innocent because he did not believe he had done anything wrong, he said in a telephone interview on Saturday from his suburban home in Dallas. He called himself a complainant and said he had written the patient’s records to hide any identifiable information.
Prosecutors did not provide an explanation to leave the positions, and Dr. Haim said he felt and surprised that they would have done it. He said he had to thank President Trump for it, “100 percent.”
“He is my man,” he said.
The Texas Children’s Hospital said in a statement sent by email that “would postpone and respect” the decision of prosecutors, which was announced on Friday.
The dismissal of the charges was another assault on transgender rights, especially in Texas, said Johnathan Gooch, spokesman for Texas equality, a LGBTQ defense group.
In recent years, the State has promulgated laws aimed at transgender people, including one that prohibits transgender athletes in women’s and female sports teams from the kindergarten to the university. These laws have had serious consequences for the trans community, defense groups say.
In states that promul to a study Cited by Trevor Project, a non -profit organization LGBTQ prevention suicide.
“I think that all this incident with the exhibition of private medical data seriously eroded a lot of confidence among LGBTQ people in Texas and their doctors, which is such an important relationship,” said Gooch. “I think it is alarming to see an implicit support of Anti-Trans vigilantism of the Department of Justice. If this is allowed, what is more allowed?
In the first week of his new mandate, Trump has moved to dismantle many protections for transgender and other LGBTQ people that were established under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Trump has ordered that government institutions only recognize the sex that a person was assigned to birth and that he is a man or woman. He instructed federal agencies that prohibit transgender women of “intimate spaces for a single sex” such as prisons.
An intense debate on whether to provide gender transition treatment to minors continues throughout the country, even in states such as Tennessee, which promulgated a prohibition of treatments that are now being considered by the United States Supreme Court. The arguments in the case were heard in December.
In Texas, gender transition care has been controversial for years. The State is one of at least 26 since 2021 that has promulgated partial or total prohibitions in minors treatments.
In 2023, the State prohibited doctors from granting puberty blockers, hormonal therapies or transition surgery to patients under 18. Doctors who violate that laws run the risk of losing their medical licenses, and health insurers are prohibited from covering the cost of treatments.
The measure was confirmed last year by the Supreme Court of Texas. And in October, the State Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas pediatrician who accused of providing gender transition care for minors in violation of the law. The case is pending.
For Dr. Haim, the decision to filter private medical records to an activist who would publish the information was easy, he said, because he felt that the hospital and his doctors were damaging the children and that the public needed to know.
When Dr. Haim listened for the first time that his Texas Children’s Hospital colleagues treated transgender children, gender transition care was legal in the state. But at the beginning of 2022, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the State Child Protection Agency to investigate youth transgender attention as “child abuse”, and said that anyone who did not inform a case of a child who is given that attention is given He would face criminal sanctions.
Weeks later, to protect himself, his legal claims patients, Texas Children’s Hospital announced that he would stop providing gender transition care to minors.
Dr. Haim said that he was now sure that the Trump administration would prohibit care nationwide, so “the most radical surgeries will finally come to an end, and these people can get the help they need to live normal lives.” He said he believed that people who think they are transgender only need mental health care, and not drugs or surgery that block puberty.
However, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that these treatments may be necessary to treat gender dysphoria, which is the psychological anguish that can occur when a person’s body does not coincide with their gender identity. The organization has ordered a review of the Available data and research on transgender attention, so you can update your practice guidelines.
Genital surgery for teenagers is extremely rare, but the main surgical procedures have become more common for older adolescents.
After Dr. Haim was accused last summer, some Republican politicians were interested in the case. Ted Cruz de Texas Senator He sent a letter A Alamdar S. Hamdani, who was the United States Prosecutor for the Southern District of Texas at that time, expressing concern that the case could be politically motivated.
Dr. Haim said he discussed the case last summer with Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, at an Alliance defending Freedom meeting, a conservative legal defense group that has promoted anti-transgender legislation.
Regardless of the reason why the charges against him were abandoned, Dr. Haim called “a miracle.” If I had been convicted, I would have faced up to 10 years in prison.
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