Last Updated on May 21, 2021
Campaign finance records reveal that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Dade Phelan received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a PAC for a clinic that offers hormone treatment to allegedly transgender children.
UT Southwestern Medical Center hosts the Gender Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program, which is the “first and largest program in the southwest that provides multidisciplinary care to transgender children and adolescents.” While the program does not offer surgery to children, it does offer a number of so-called “treatments” that may amount to chemical castration, including hormone therapy, menstruation suppression, and puberty suppression.
“Our team has impacted thousands of youth across the country and is a vital resource for patients, families and communities,” their website reads. “We support youth of all gender expressions and identities, and provide evidence-based, gender-affirming care in a supportive and safe environment,” it continues, claiming that “gender identity is unique for every child and may be different from the sex assigned to them at birth.”
Campaign finance records show that the Friends of UT Southwestern Center, also known as FOMCPAC, handed out well over $250,000 in total to a number of top Texas politicians who were recently involved in shutting down multiple pieces of legislation that would have prevented hormone treatment and surgery from being provided to supposed transgender children in the state.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who National File has been told led the charges against the bills designed to protect children, received $85,000 from the transgender clinic PAC since 2015. His Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, received the lion’s share from FOMCPAC however, taking over $120,000 since 2015. Newly-elected House Speaker Dade Phelan was given $50,000 in the 2020 cycle by the clinic’s PAC. Similarly, Rep. Stephanie Klick, who was in a position to block these bills in her role as the Chair of the House Health Committee, received $4,000 from FOMCPAC since 2015.
According to Tracy Shannon, the Director of the Texas Mass Resistance activist group, Phelan’s decision to declare a recess yesterday effectively kills S.B. 1311’s chances of passing. S.B. 1311 would have stripped liability insurance for doctors who engage in transgender surgeries or chemical castrations for kids.
National File spoke with former U.S. House candidate Chris Ekstrom, who has repeatedly pushed Texas Republicans to pass legislation protecting children from transgender surgeries and chemical castration. Ekstrom suggested that Patrick allowed S.B. 1311 to pass in the Senate under the presumption it would be killed by Phelan in the House. “I wish I could say I’m surprised that Dan Patrick is taking money from the chemical castration lobby. But during the last session, to my horror, I realized that Dan Patrick was totally unaware of the Monuments Protection Act until we forced him at a meeting of the True Texas Project to acknowledge that Republicans expected him to do something about it,” said Ekstrom. “After the meeting, he promptly pushed it through the Senate, where it then died in the House, just like S.B. 1311. Is this déjà vu? $120,000 isn’t chump change, and apparently Dan knew which way the wind was blowing in the House.”
Similarly, former State Rep. Matt Rinaldi recently told National File that the plot to kill H.B. 1399 was a “team effort” by the Phelan leadership team. HB 1399 would have stripped doctors of their ability to acquire liability insurance if they engaged in child transgender surgeries or chemical castrations at their practices, and was killed last week. “The bill was slow-walked the entire way by Reps. Klick and Burrows, presumably under orders from the Speaker [Dade Phelan],” Rinaldi told National File. “The fact that House Republicans would work so hard to preserve sex change surgeries for minors is beyond contempt,” Rinaldi continued. “The Texas GOP needs a housecleaning next primary.”
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller recently pleaded with Abbott to support the legislation in an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “I wish our governor, Greg Abbott, would use some of his political powers and political capital to get this [bill] moving,” said Miller. “He’s just silent on it, we need him to weigh in,” he continued. “I’m a statewide elected official, I’m the Ag Commissioner, but I’m weighing in. I think it’s that important.”
"This gender modification has got to stop. It's just cowboy logic." pic.twitter.com/nR8y2QrE0M
— National File (@NationalFile) May 8, 2021
Abbott’s silence and inaction on the transgender bills may result in him facing a serious primary challenge for the Texas governorship in 2022. Texas real estate developer Don Huffines, who is widely expected to self-fund his primary campaign against Abbott, released a new ad featuring Jeff Younger – the father of 9-year-old James Younger, who identifies as a boy with his father but is forced to wear dresses and identify as a girl by his mother – that slams Abbott for his refusal to take a pivotal stand on the issue of child gender transition surgeries and chemical castration.
“This session, Abbott prioritized rural Internet expansion while refusing to protect Texas kids. Abbott’s silence an inaction is endangering Texas children, but from the beginning, Don Huffines has stood with me to protect Texas children. Don is the proven leader we need to lead this state,” concluded Younger. Huffines then promised, “As Governor, I will end the barbaric practice of these abusive therapies on two-year-olds and the mutilation of Texas children will come to an end. We’re out of time. No more excuses.”
