Conservative protests force transgender youth health clinic to close

February 23 2017 Rally to Support Trans Youth
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A Dallas health care program for transgender youth has been shut down after conservative activists lobbied against it, The Texas Tribune reports. The critics claimed that providing gender affirming health care to transgender youth is “child abuse,” even though it saves lives.

The GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support program, known as GENECIS, was Texas’s only public clinic for transgender youth, until officials announced on Friday that it would be shutting down.

Related: President Biden honors trans people lost to “horrifying violence” on Transgender Day of Remembrance

Officials from the Children’s Medical Center Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center, which operated the program together, have assured the public that those who were receiving treatment through the program will continue to do so through other hospital departments. Dissolving the program, they said, was the best option to maintain patient privacy.

“The choice to remove branding for this care offers a more private, insulated experience for patients and their families,” said a joint statement from the two medical centers.

The statement also emphasized that staff does not “anticipate any interruption of care or services for our existing patients who already receive care with these specialty teams.”

It added, however, that while…

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