After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared his intention to sign a bill banning sex alteration surgeries for minors, a doctor who once headed a well-known minor transitioning program announced she would be leaving the state.
Dr. Ximena Lopez, who led the Genecis transgender youth clinic in Dallas, recently indicated that she would be moving to California following the bill becoming a law, per The Dallas Morning News.
Lopez was a pediatric endocrinologist for the Genecis program, a collaboration between UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas.
Her attorney Charla Aldous told the DMN that Lopez would not comment on her departure.
The bill prompting Lopez’s apparent plans to leave the state is Senate Bill 14, which prohibits a plethora of sex alteration procedures on children and institutes punishment for people who violate the statute.
SB14 was sent to Gov. Abbott on May 19 after being passed by both the House and Senate, and Abbott has announced that he plans to sign the bill into law.
“I’m not going to make any secret about it. I’ll be signing it,” he told Fox News.
“In the state of Texas, if you’re under the age of 18, you can’t get a tattoo, you can’t buy cigarettes, and so many other things, but people think they should be able to make a decision to permanently alter their sex organs,” the three-term governor said.
“That’s just outrageous. In Texas, we believe that cutting off a child’s sex organs is child abuse and it’s going to be treated that way by law,” Abbott concluded.
In the wake of SB 14’s passing and various investigations by the Office of the Attorney General, several doctors who were involved with child sex alteration programs have either “departed” their medical institution or the state entirely.
Once SB 14 becomes law, it will face legal challenges from several advocacy groups that support sex alteration surgeries for children.
“Transgender youth in Texas deserve the support and care necessary to give them the same chance to thrive as their peers,” Transgender Law Center tweeted. “Alongside @aclu, and @lambdalegal, and @aclutexas we will be fighting to ensure this reality!”
“Texas, we’ll see you in court,” Lambda Legal similarly shared.
“We will be filing a lawsuit to protect transgender youth in Texas from being stripped of access to healthcare that keeps them healthy and alive,” a group of LGBTQ+ legal advocates claimed in a joint statement. “They are hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth.”
“We will defend the rights of transgender youth in court, just as we have done in other states engaging in this anti-science and discriminatory fear-mongering.”
The ACLU of Texas tweeted, “We’ll take Gov. Abbott to court if he signs #SB14 into law, banning health care for trans youth.”
“Similar unconstitutional bills have been challenged and stopped in other states,” the group added.
But Abbott maintains that this bill protects youth rather than harms them.
“This is about protecting children,” Abbott told Fox. “A person under the age of 18, they don’t have the mental capacity to make a life-changing decision to lose their sex organs.”
