Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

Lawyer preparation suggests Trump won’t testify in New York trial

The problem with diversity statements — and what to do about them

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

In photos: The 149th running of the Preakness Stakes

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

Gov. Doug Burgum speaks in support of Trump

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Flying budget airlines might not be as cheap as it seems

The other side of Punta Cana: A crackdown on Haitians

Top White House aide to meet Netanyahu, who is under political pressure

Live updates: Rescuers struggle to find helicopter carrying Iranian president

Carolyn Hax: Friends say to break other plans to avoid offending new man

Ask Amy: Should my husband get a say in what I do with my inheritance?

Ask Amy: Can’t a single woman eat alone without interruption?

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Kyle Finnegan’s rare hiccup helps Phillies to a 4-3 win in 10 innings

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Walter Johnson’s jersey from 1920 showdown with Babe Ruth sold at auction

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

Would you eat this weird sandwich? Barry Enderwick would. 

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Trump

Eric Gay

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has requested medical records from a Georgia telehealth clinic that provides gender-affirming care, a newly discovered move that shows the Republican official is looking in multiple states for information about transgender youths.

Paxton requested transgender youths’ medical records from QueerMed — which is based in Decatur, Ga. — late last year, the health provider’s founder Izzy Lowell told The Washington Post on Sunday.

“This request from the Texas Attorney general is a clear attempt to intimidate providers of gender-affirming care and parents and families that seek that care outside of Texas and other states with bans,” Lowell said in a statement.

Lowell, a family physician, said the clinic stopped providing services to minors in Texas after that state banned gender-affirming care for minors in September. Paxton’s Nov. 17 request, however, was for information about patients dating back to Jan. 1, 2022.

“Let me be clear: QueerMed will never, ever turn over HIPAA-protected patient information,” said Lowell’s statement. “We are not breaking any laws and we will continue to legally provide care in states that have not made the callous decision to put politics ahead of patient health.”

HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a federal law that regulates how health information is used and exchanged among hospitals and doctors’ offices. Lowell did not specify what questions Paxton asked of her clinic.

Texas’s law restricting gender-affirming care for youths does not bar families from seeking care elsewhere.

Georgia is at least the second state where Paxton has sought the medical records of Texas youths, showing that his office is ramping up efforts to curb access to gender-affirming care. Seattle Children’s Hospital <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/21/seattle-children-hospital-texas-gender/" target=_blank>received</a> a similar letter in November. In response, the hospital requested a Texas judge to nullify, or at least rein in, Paxton’s demands, saying Paxton does not have jurisdiction over the hospital.

In its legal filing, the hospital also argued that the information Paxton requested was for private medical records and health information covered under HIPAA and Washington state privacy laws, and that Paxton’s queries, purported as an investigation by his consumer protection division, were “sham requests.”

Paxton had asked the Seattle hospital to confirm all medications prescribed by the hospital to Texas children, the number of Texas children treated by the hospital for gender dysphoria, the number of “gender reassignment” surgeries performed, diagnoses for every medication provided by the hospital to Texas children, and the names of labs in Texas that performed tests for the hospital before prescribing medications.

Rory Doyle

Lowell, of QueerMed, said Paxton’s request for her business’s records was similar to the one Paxton made of the Seattle hospital. It was not clear how many clinics across the country Paxton had requested records, though Lowell said she had seen letters sent to colleagues in other states.

Paxton’s office did not reply to The Post’s request for comment and a copy of the request sent to QueerMed on Saturday and Sunday.

In November, The Post filed a public records request for all requests filed for medical records of Texas youths who received gender-affirming care out of state. The office responded Jan. 11 by sharing the request to the Seattle hospital. It did not share the QueerMed request.

The Post appealed to the Travis County district attorney after the attorney general refused to supply the QueerMed request.

Paxton has led similar initiatives in Texas. His office investigated clinics in Austin, Dallas and Houston for providing gender-affirming care last year, leading the clinics to close or stop providing services, The Post reported at the time. Paxton’s office also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/texas-transgender-data-paxton/?itid=lk_inline_manual_10" target=_blank>requested records</a> from the Texas Department of Public Safety for those who had changed their sex on their driver’s licenses.

Other state attorneys general have requested similar records, but they have focused their requests on hospitals within their own states. Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville is facing patient lawsuits and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/14/us/tennessee-vanderbilt-university-medical-center-investigation-transgender-reaj/index.html" target=_blank>a civil rights investigation</a> by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after the hospital confirmed in June that it had turned over the medical records of transgender patients as part of a probe by the Tennessee attorney general’s office.

This year, several Republican-led legislatures have put forward bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults. At least 22 states have banned gender-affirming care for children, most having done so in the past year, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-care-republican-legislatures-5d98832c0234de079263672c738e0631" target=_blank>according to the AP</a>.

Those supporting the bans say they have concerns about the treatments and want to protect children.

The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society and other major medical organizations oppose<b> </b>restrictions on gender-affirming care. The American Academy of Pediatrics has described such care as “medically necessary and appropriate” for some minors.

QueerMed received the Nov. 17 letter on Dec. 7, a delay Lowell attributed to a fire that burned down the care facility’s Decatur office last year. The fire was set intentionally, the Decatur Fire Department said. The perpetrators are still unknown, and the city is collaborating with federal and state agencies to investigate.

In her statement about Paxton’s investigation, Lowell said she is “deeply saddened by the pain and suffering this is causing all transgender and nonbinary patients and families across the South.”

Lowell founded the clinic in 2017 because at the time transgender and nonbinary people in Georgia, didn’t have good access to health care, she said.

Patients were having to travel great distances for care, she said, so most of the clinic’s patients were using its telehealth services.

“I thought naively that I will provide this care for four to five years and then as access to such care will improve, I will move on to something else,” she said. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

New York University, MA in Near Eastern Studies 

Lahore University of Management Sciences, BA in Social Sciences 

Maham Javaid is a general assignment reporter who joined The Washington Post in 2022. She was previously reporting for the Live desk at the New York Times.  

Maham Javaid

2018 APME International Perspective

2015 Overseas Press Club

2013 DART Award

2012 Livingston Finalist

Harvard College, BA Social Studies, 1999

Molly Hennessy-Fiske joined The Post in 2022 as a national reporter based in Texas covering breaking news and red states.

Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Ken Paxton asks Georgia clinic for transgender youths’ patient records

the-washington-post

Ken Paxton

Climate

Education

Health

Innovations

Investigations

National Security

Obituaries

Science

National

washpost

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/national&limit=20

The Washington Post's national news coverage. Get the latest national news, featuring national security, science and the courts. Read breaking national news headlines from across the U.S.