As the Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) scandal continues to unfold, the panic on display from the powers that be is yet more evidence that we are living in a post-trans the kidsworld.

Biden’s Department of Justice hauled former TCH surgeon Dr Eithan Haim before the courts earlier this month. His crime? Exposing the hospital’s secret continuation of child “gender medicine” despite its own public denials — and despite a statewide ban on the practice.

A week ago, Dr Haim pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment that held him in violation of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). In layman’s terms, White House attack dogs have done an end-run around the hospital’s alleged criminal activities and are instead charging a brave whistleblower for accessing patient data under “false pretences”.

Although the trial is still underway, the prosecution’s case seems eminently shaky. As reported by City Journal, the outlet that published Dr Haim’s original scoop via its Contributing Editor Christopher Rufo:

According to a letter written by Haim’s lawyers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari admitted that she hadn’t reviewed the purported evidence against Haim and was instead relying on what FBI agents told her. In the same discussion, Ansari insisted that the documents Haim sent to Rufo included children’s names, but nothing in the documents Rufo saw identified any individuals. All were redacted. The prosecutor then asked Haim to admit wrongdoing, telling him that he should apologize to the families of the children who received transgender medical interventions at TCH if he wanted her to help him avoid a felony prosecution. When this tactic failed, Ansari intimated that the families would sue if she didn’t bring criminal charges.

Talk about desperate. HIPAA was designed to keep people’s medical information private. How can Dr Haim be in violation of that Act if the documents he leaked don’t identify anyone, but merely reveal that certain treatments are taking place at the clinic?

If City Journal is correct — and they have been devastatingly accurate so far — it is difficult to see this as anything but naked political persecution. Having lost the trans the kids debate on merit, the Biden admin is now desperate to stave off any future whistleblowers by punishing current ones.

But fancy lawsuits, thugs from three-letter agencies, and the media’s best euphemisms are not enough to hide the flailing. Panic has set in, and anyone with eyes can see it.

Moreover, the bad news keeps coming for Texas Children’s Hospital and every one of its crony defenders.

Since Mercator last covered this story, Christopher Rufo published another deep dive when an additional whistleblower brought evidence that doctors at the child sex-change clinic have committed Medicaid fraud. Within 24 hours, Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton had opened an investigation into the matter.

(By the way, that whistleblower is Vanessa Sivadge, a former registered nurse at TCH. City Journal reports that in response to her tattling, “two FBI agents knocked on her door and, according to Sivadge, told her that she was a ‘person of interest’ in the investigation involving Haim. They threatened to ‘her life difficult’ if she tried to protect him.”)

Soon after, TCH scrubbed its press contact page from the internet. Then, when another journalist — Jonathan Chow of the Discovery Institute — approached the hospital with questions about the growing furore, staff attempted to have him trespassed by police.

If all this weren’t enough, on Friday, in an emphatic 8-to-1 decision, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the law banning child “gender medicine” that state legislators had originally crafted in response to the scandal at Texas Children’s Hospital.

As dark clouds continue to circle, City Journal argues that Dr Haim is innocent of the scurrilous charges:

Paragraph 19 of the indictment alleges that Haim’s disclosures to Rufo resulted in “financial loss” to TCH, and that Haim blew the whistle out of “malicious intent.” Haim, for his part, observes that he swore an oath to “do no harm” and believed he had a duty to disclose alleged TCH’s secret gender clinic to prevent further harm to children undergoing procedures for which there is a lack of long-term evidence of efficacy (or safety).

Let me put it in less polished verbiage. Child “gender medicine” is a Frankensteinish freak-show without a future. But it still has federal clout. When that’s finally gone, it will be a cautionary tale in the footnotes of history.

And it’s time for the die-hards to wake up and start acting like it.

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AUTHOR

KURT MAHLBURG

Kurt Mahlburg is a husband, father, freelance writer, and a familiar Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He is the Senior Editor at Australia’s largest Christian news site The Daily Declaration and a Contributing Editor at Mercator. His writings can also be found at Intellectual Takeout, The American Spectator and the Spectator Australia. He has authored or co-authored five books, including his breakout title Cross and Culture: Can Jesus Save the West?

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