Transgender teenager in Texas fears losing access to health care

After Texas cuts out transgender medical care for young people, patients try to figure out what's next.

16-year-old Cameron Wright has always referred to himself as a "man." As a child, Cameron had no words to describe the difference between how he saw himself and how the world saw him. But he knew that even though he was born in a female body, he had to be a boy.

After taking a reversible pubertal blocker, which stops changes in a teenager's body, Cameron considered starting hormone therapy to make him physically more durable. However, he did not take the decision lightly. Cameron said his doctors gave him nearly a year to consider, work with his therapist and weigh the life-altering consequences before doctors were sure he was ready to start taking the drug in 2020.

"I think if I had remained a girl, life would have been a lot easier," said Cameron, who uses the pronouns he and she. "But this is what I want, and I won't let anything stop me from being who I want to be, difficult or not." Then, in November 2021, the Interdisciplinary Gender Support Clinic in Dallas, known as Genesis, stopped accepting new patients.

For hormonal treatment for sexual dysphoria due to pressure from Republican activists and politicians. Although doctors can still see patients like Cameron they have worked with, the clinic has been demolished. Cameron and his family are now worried about what this means for them.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also launched an investigation into drug companies whose products are used by transgender patients, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Republicans are increasingly focusing their legislative and re-election efforts on a record number of bills targeting the Transgender Targeting Law. People, their parents, and their doctors.