El Paso, Texas – Dr. Héctor Granados provides treatment to children with diabetes in their offices of this Texan city, and performs hospital shifts, all under the shadow of accusations that have put their career in check: they denounce it for giving medical care to trans youths.
Texas, in a judicial case that specialists consider The first of its typehe is demanding from Granados and two other doctors, accusing them of violating the state prohibition against giving gender statement to minors. The specialists have been flawed with “malefactors” in a series of legal demands presented at the end of last year, which carry possible fines and even the revocation of their medical licenses.
Granados rejects the accusations, and the three defendants have asked that the cases be ruled out against them.
Texas government’s judicial actions present proof of how the courts would react to the increasingly intense efforts of Republican officialsincluding several measures issued by President Donald Trump, for prohibiting that this type of medical care be granted or to be people under 19.
In some hospitals, related services for pediatric patients have already begun to be dismantled. But, so far, only Texas wanted to demonstrate what punishments He can face health personnel if the government believes that prohibitions contravened.
Granados said, in an interview with , that he still stopped giving gender statement care since before the Texan veto entered into force, in 2023. He has denied that he continued to recipe pubertals or hormonal treatments for his trans patients and said that the demand does not even appoint the alleged patients that he supposedly continued to attend despite the prohibition despite the prohibition.
Young people and trans adults add up to less than 1% of the population of the United States
To the other two accused doctors in the case, Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper, both of Dallas, the authorities have even temporarily prohibited them to continue attending patients. They are only allowed to practice medicine in academic or research environments.
“Telling my patients was difficult Because they are disappointed with what is happening, “says Granados about stopping providing care for trans people.” But it was necessary to stop that, because this is the law. “
Republicans so far have established vetoes to medical care for trans people trans In 27 statesincluding this month in Kansas, despite the fact that the Democratic governor tried to back the measure of the state legislature.
Although in some of those states people who go against the prohibition can face criminal charges, in Texas the planned sanctions are not criminal.
But the situation has made national doctors and hospital managers reassess their respective health programs due to the risk of being enrolled in litigation and losing federal funds for health care.
While trans people in the United States see how their options for medical care decrease, and their fears and uncertainty increase.
The supporters of these prohibitions affirm that this is how “vulnerable” minors are protected from what these people consider a “radical” ideology about gender identity issues.
“It is not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does (…) It is about caring for children who require specific therapy”
Héctor Granados
The demands against Granados and the other two doctors were presented by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. This official in the past has even tried to go beyond the borders of his state by launching investigations on gender statement treatments.
Pxton’s office refused to comment on the demands or the alleged evidence of the cases against Granados and their colleagues.
One of only two specialists
Granados is one of only two people who practice pediatric endocrinology in El Paso, a city with about 700,000 inhabitants.
The 48 -year -old doctor and originally from Ciudad Juárez, said that after studying medicine in Mexico, he specialized in faculties and hospitals in New York and Connecticut. But that he wanted to return to the Texas area when considering that there are few accessible medical services there.
He opened his clinic at the Health Center of the Texas Tech University, and then established his private office in 2019. Granados says that, before the prohibition of gender statement care, providing those treatments was just one more issue of their health services, as It also serves young people with diabetesgrowth problems or early puberty.
To treat patients with these last two topics, hormones such as the prescriptions of trans people are sometimes used.
The doctor points out that he only accepted transgender patients if they had already received a specialized diagnosis from a mental health professional.
“It is not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does,” he says. “It’s just about taking care of children who require specific therapy.”
One of those patients is Emiliana Edwards. The young woman who is now 18 explain everything I needed to know about your gender statement treatments.
In his first consultation after Texas prohibited gender statement treatments in the state to minors, Edwards remembers that the environment in the Granados office felt constrained.
“It was as if we couldn’t talk about anything, or the simplest,” says the young woman.
Lorena Edwards, Mother of Emiliana, says that Granados told them that the care she had been providing to the young woman had to stop.
“He only told us: ‘I don’t give those treatments.’ And it’s over,” says Edwards.
The judicial case
At the center of Texas demand against Granados, Lau and Cooper is the accusation that they continued to recipe treatments that usually occur for gender transition after the state prohibition entered into force.
For example, the Government accuses Granados of prescribing testosterone to a 16 -year -old person that Doctor’s medical history identifies as a man when, according to demand, the sex that was assigned to that patient at birth was feminine.
Granados does not deny that he has continued to recipe hormonal therapies. But he says that these are not for patients in gender transition but for Children with various endocrine disorders. The doctor points out that testosterone is prescribed for many reasons, for example if a patient’s testicles did not develop correctly or had to be removed by cancer treatment.
There are patients with brain tumors or who received radiation and that affected their puberty. Pubertal blockers that sometimes use some trans youths are also given to patients of any sex when they have early development.
Lau’s lawyers also say that the doctor has always fulfilled the law and that state government complaints have no legal merit. Cooper’s legal representatives did not respond to requests to comment.
“All this is part of a much greater pattern of extremism In this state, one that other state governments have not even wanted to replicate, “says Sarah Warbelow, vice president for legal issues of the Human Rights Campaign organization.
Young people and trans adults in the United States total 1% of the population, according to a specialized research center of the UCLA Law Faculty.
The trial against Granados is scheduled for October; For Lau and Cooper there is still no planned date.
With the prohibition of Texas, the State Medical Board was instructed to revoke licenses to practice doctors who are declared guilty of violating the law.
Lorena Edwards, Emiliana’s mother, says that her daughter saw her flourish when she was receiving her treatments and then decaying and becoming very melancholic when laws such as Texas prohibition began to enter into force.
For now, Emiliana Edwards is receiving her treatment in New Mexico, the neighboring state where gender statement care is still legal. But he says that he is concerned that measures against people like her are still driven.
“We are human beings just like others, and we are only trying to live,” he says.
