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  "path": "/health/transgender-health/texas-trans-youth-health-ban",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-11T16:43:46.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.advocate.com",
  "tags": [
    "Attorney general",
    "Disabilities",
    "Gender-affirming care",
    "Gender-affirming care ban",
    "Health",
    "Health care",
    "Hormone therapy",
    "Hormones",
    "Ken paxton",
    "Politics",
    "Puberty blockers",
    "Talk therapy",
    "Texas",
    "Transgender health care",
    "_Texas_",
    "_a new investigation_",
    "_passed a law_",
    "_accused him_",
    "_also applied to talk therapy_",
    "_other doctors_",
    "___Morrison Media Group___"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nFor _Texas_ children with special medical needs, a 2023 state law banning gender-affirming care for minors has had unplanned consequences, according to _a new investigation_ by __The Texas Tribune__.\n\nTexas _passed a law_ in June 2023 banning doctors from providing residents under age 18 gender-affirming care, blocking hormone therapy as well as gender-affirming surgeries, which are already rare.\n\nWhile the bill maintained hormone therapy for reasons unrelated to gender-affirming care, the __Tribune__ found it had a chilling effect on medical providers who offer those services. As a result, some cut off much-needed medical services.\n\nIn El Paso, the publication found that an endocrinologist stopped prescribing puberty blockers after the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, _accused him_ of providing gender-affirming care to minors, according to the __Tribune__.\n\nAs the only pediatric endocrinologist in the city, that meant some families had no local options to continue care. For one family, that meant the difficult decision of moving out of state to ensure their child, whose medical needs related to Bardet-Biedl syndrome require puberty blockers, according to the __Tribune__.\n\nIn recent years, Texas has focused on restricting access to gender-affirming medical care for its youth, while similar efforts play out on the national level.\n\nAttorney General Paxton recently issued a legal opinion that the state’s gender-affirming care ban for minors _also applied to talk therapy_. Plus, the attorney general has taken _other doctors_ to court over allegations that they are providing gender-affirming care.\n\nFor residents like Gabrielle Jones-Radtke, the mother moving her family out of state to maintain hormone therapy treatments for her daughter, the __Tribune__ found these efforts have created new obstacles in the state’s medical landscape at large.\n\n“I love Texas, but right now,” Jones-Radtke told the _Tribune_ , \"it doesn’t feel like they love us back.”\n\n __This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from__ ___Morrison Media Group___ __. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.__",
  "title": "Cisgender kids in Texas can’t get care due to anti-trans laws"
}