Although the Gender Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) Center are closing, Save Texas Kids (STK) is continuing its protests.
Last week, the local parent activist group rallied in front of Crystal Charity Ball, where socialite Caren Kline serves as chair. Kline, who is a Dallas Children’s Medical board member, did not respond to requests for comment.
“The GENECIS Center may have been closed but no assurances have been given that they will not refer children to outside providers or cease harmful activities altogether,” said STK President Carlos Turcios.
STK and its supporters have been protesting the ‘gender-affirming care’ that GENECIS Center provided, including prescribing transgender hormone usage to prepubescent children.
“You have an ideological push in the psychiatric business to where so many of these psychologists are coming out of school advocating for gender identity and gender ideology in children to the point that they will take something as innocent as a boy playing with a Barbie or something that really isn’t warranting true gender dysphoria but being so quick to take the smallest detail or change or disturbance in a child and then immediately signing off on a note for that child to get puberty blockers,” said Mary Elizabeth Castle, senior policy advisor with Texas Values, an advocacy group in Austin.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, the GENECIS Center, a major clinic at Dallas Children’s Medical, recently disbanded after a series of protests at Dallas Children’s Medical board members’ places of work.
“STK and its supporters have played a major role in showing the powers that be that Texans do not want these activities happening in their state,” Turcios told The Dallas Express. “Getting GENECIS closed is just the beginning.”
Dallas Children’s Medical board members Robbie Briggs, Lou Grabowsky, and Lee Hobson did not respond to requests for comment.
However, a brand manager at Tolleson Wealth Management, where Dallas Children’s Medical board member Dotti Reeder works, replied by email.
“Since Tolleson Wealth Management is not affiliated with the topic you are inquiring about, I’d recommend reaching out to Children’s Medical Center on this issue,” said Tolleson Wealth Management’s Shannon Allcon.
Advocates like STK allege that procedures provided by the GENECIS program amount to child abuse due to the alleged use of ‘puberty blockers’ in children as young as ten years old.
“Puberty blockers” allegedly cause irreversible alterations to children’s bodies and can have the ultimate effect of permanently sterilizing children.
“Parents are overly reliant on these doctors and feel helpless because the doctors are pushing it, but there are other instances where you have parents who have a disorder called Munchausen using this so that their child will be reliant on the parent for life,” Castle told The Dallas Express.
“Once a child starts the gender transition process, they are a medical patient for life. What’s sad is the child will never be independent because they will always be reliant on the doctor and on that parent who, unfortunately, is making them believe that there’s something wrong with them.”
Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton announced last week that he is investigating pharmaceutical companies that promote ‘puberty blockers.’
“We think it’s great that the state of Texas is willing to take steps to protect children from these dangerous practices,” Turcios said in an interview.
Endo Pharmaceuticals, AbbVie, Supprelin LA, Lupron Depot, and Vantas are among the companies and medications being scrutinized under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act for allegedly advertising and peddling hormone blockers for unapproved uses without disclosing the potential risks associated with the drugs to children and their parents.
Some transgender youths are reportedly using drugs to prevent the development of breasts, facial hair, and menstruation.
“We are not legal experts but it seems to us that if those companies are promoting them as safe treatments for children, then they should be held to the same standard the manufacturers of Oxycontin and other harmful opiates have been,” Turcios said.
It was widely reported that Paxton plans to issue an opinion on the legalities of transgender hormone usage and that he views childhood gender reassignment as abuse.
“If the ruling is affirmed that the aforementioned treatments are legally child abuse and the practitioners do not immediately cease, then they [GENECIS physicians] should lose their licenses and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Turcios added. “If they agree to no longer harm children, surely a new position could be found for them.”
“It’s very important that we fight for legislation on this issue,” Castle added. “We’re learning more about the harm these puberty blockers and these surgeries are doing to children and we’re learning how widespread and how much it has influenced different medical industries. So, now that we have a lot more information about how widespread this issue is, we should be ready to tackle this issue at the Texas legislature and hopefully soon.”
GENECIS physicians and Dallas Children’s Medical staff did not respond to requests for comment.