The state of Texas has filed a sweeping lawsuit against a physician and a major children’s hospital system, alleging they defied state law banning gender-related medical interventions for minors and engaged in widespread billing fraud at taxpayers’ expense.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the lawsuit against Children’s Health System of Texas and Dr. Jason Jarin, accusing them of unlawfully providing minors with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones after the state’s prohibition took effect. The lawsuit alleges the defendants defrauded state insurance programs and deliberately attempted to skirt Senate Bill 14, which bans sex-rejecting medical interventions for minors.
“I will use every legal tool available to ensure radical gender activists like Jarin face justice for hurting our kids,” Paxton told The Daily Wire. He further accused the doctor of permanently harming children and billing Medicaid for what he described as illegal and unethical procedures.
Texas passed SB-14 in June 2023, and the law went into effect on September 1 of that year. According to the lawsuit, Dr. Jarin — a Division Director at Children’s Health System of Texas and Associate Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center — continued prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers after the ban was in place.
The complaint alleges that Dr. Jarin billed male patients for birth control medications intended to function as cross-sex estrogen, misused diagnostic codes for sex-rejecting procedures, and prescribed puberty blockers to “otherwise healthy children” under the diagnosis of precocious puberty. While the Food and Drug Administration has approved puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty, they are not FDA-approved for gender dysphoria.
The lawsuit contends that despite the state’s clear prohibition, so-called “gender affirming care” continued behind the scenes. It also claims that Texas taxpayers have spent millions of dollars covering transition-related procedures for minors and young adults.
Children’s Health said in a statement that its top priority is patient well-being and that it complies with all applicable local, state, and federal laws. The organization declined further comment due to ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit also outlines the history of a gender clinic known as GENECIS, opened in 2015 by Children’s and UT Southwestern. The clinic reportedly served more than 1,000 patients before closing in March 2022 amid heightened scrutiny. However, the lawsuit alleges that services continued under different departments, with many patients seeing the same providers in the same locations.
When SB-14 passed, Dr. Jarin and other physicians met with UT Southwestern leadership to discuss the law’s implications. According to the lawsuit, a “wean protocol” was developed to gradually reduce hormone treatments for certain patients. Paxton claims this protocol was designed to justify continued prescriptions in violation of state law.
The protocol allegedly reduced hormone dosages so slowly that it could take two to five years to fully discontinue, potentially allowing patients to maintain hormone levels until they reached age 18. Certain “exception” criteria reportedly allowed patients to stop weaning altogether, including maintaining hormone levels for purported bone health.
Paxton argues there was no legitimate medical basis for these recommendations and calls the protocol a pretext for continuing banned treatments. The lawsuit cites expert criticism, including from Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm, who stated there is no evidence supporting prolonged maintenance of cross-sex hormone levels and warned of serious side effects.
The 75-page complaint accuses both defendants of violating the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act and the Texas Business & Commerce Code, and alleges Dr. Jarin knowingly violated SB-14 with respect to at least twelve minors.
UT Southwestern Medical Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
