Texas AG accuses Children’s Health of providing illegal gender treatment for minors

MCKINNEY, Texas (CN) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Children’s Health System of Texas, one of the nation’s largest pediatric health care providers, on Wednesday, claiming it provides gender-affirming medical treatments for minors in violation of state law.

In a petition filed in Collin County District Court, Paxton characterizes Dr. Jason Jarin — a pediatric gynecologist and division director at the North Texas health system — as a “radical gender activist” who has provided illegal gender transition treatments for minors.

“I will use every legal tool available to ensure radical gender activists like Jarin face justice for hurting our kids,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “This criminal extremist not only permanently harmed children, but he also then defrauded Medicaid and stuck Texas taxpayers with the bill for this insanity. Experimental ‘transition’ procedures on minors are illegal, unethical, and will not be tolerated in Texas.”

Paxton accuses Jarin and Children’s Health of deceptive trade practices, violations of Senate Bill 14 and health care fraud.

Texas passed SB 14 in 2023, prohibiting health care professionals from providing surgeries, hormones or puberty suppressing medications to minors for the purpose of gender transition and bars the use of public funds for such treatments.

The ban took effect September 1, 2023. In 2024, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the law, reversing a lower court’s ruling that had previously blocked its enforcement.

The complaint outlines 12 transgender minors for whom Paxton claims Jarin prescribed gender-affirming hormones or inserted puberty blocking implants either after SB 14 went into effect or between the time of its passage and when it took effect.

For the prescriptions and implants provided before the ban took effect, Paxton asserts that these should be considered continuing courses of treatment that continued to occur after the law’s effective date.

Paxton also accuses Jarin of fraudulently billing Texas Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program for the treatments by disguising them as treatments for other conditions, such as endocrine disorders or precocious puberty.

“In addition to the fact that these claims were submitted with inaccurate diagnoses, Defendants also committed unlawful acts in connection with them because they covertly sought Medicaid reimbursement for transgender medical services and drugs that are not covered,” he writes in the suit.

Paxton seeks temporary and permanent injunctions against Jardin and Children’s Health. He also requests that they be ordered to pay three times the amount of money they received from state health care programs for such treatments, as well as civil penalties. Paxton seeks over $1 million in monetary relief.

Children’s Health told Courthouse News Service in a statement, “Our top priority is the health and well-being of the patients and families we serve. We comply with all applicable local, state and federal health care laws. Due to ongoing legal proceedings, we are unable to comment further at this time.”

Children’s Health previously attracted the ire of conservative activists and politicians for its GENECIS clinic, which provided mental health treatment, puberty suppression and hormone treatments for transgender youth.

In November 2021, following a pressure campaign that included protesters showing up at the office of a board member, Children’s Health announced that it had dissolved the clinic and would no longer be providing puberty suppression and hormone therapies to new patients.