Paxton sues Children's Health over banned transgender youth care

🤠Texas AG KPKen Paxton filed suit on February 18, 2026 against Children's Health System of Texas and Dr. JJJason Jarin, a pediatric and adolescent gynecologist and associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The lawsuit accuses them of providing gender-affirming care — including puberty blockers and hormone therapy — to 19 minors in violation of Senate Bill 14, which banned such treatments for minors starting September 1, 2023.

Paxton's office alleges Jarin treated patients as young as 9 years old and intentionally prescribed extra hormones in the months before SB 14 took effect so that patients could continue receiving treatment after the ban. This stockpiling allegation is central to the fraud claims, because it suggests Jarin deliberately worked around the law rather than simply failing to comply.

The Medicaid fraud allegations are a separate legal weapon. Paxton claims Jarin and Children's Health repeatedly changed patients' listed gender in Medicaid billing records and coded treatments as routine endocrine disorders rather than gender-affirming care. This allowed claims to get paid that Paxton says 🤠Texas Medicaid and CHIP should have rejected under SB 14.

Paxton seeks more than $1 million in civil penalties and a temporary injunction stopping all gender-affirming care at Children's Health immediately. Under SB 14, the 🤠Texas Medical Board must revoke the medical license of any physician found to have provided gender-affirming care to a minor — so a loss in court could end Jarin's career.

This is not 🤠Texas's first enforcement action against a pediatric hospital. In 2023, Paxton launched an investigation into Texas Children's Hospital in Houston after surgeon EHEithan Haim leaked internal records to conservative activist Christopher Rufo alleging the hospital secretly continued gender-affirming care. Haim faced federal HIPAA charges that were dropped in January 2025.

Children's Health System of 🤠Texas is the nation's seventh-largest pediatric hospital

It said in a statement that it complies with all applicable laws

The hospital has not confirmed or denied the specific allegations Dr. Jarin has not publicly commented on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit lands in a much larger national enforcement wave

Twenty-seven states now ban gender-affirming care for minors

In July 2025, the federal DOJ issued more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics investigating potential False Claims Act violations tied to transgender care billing Several major hospitals — including Children's National in 🏛️Washington, D.C. and Children's Hospital Los Angeles — shut down their pediatric gender clinics in response to the legal pressure.

Major medical organizations are on the other side of this fight

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association all support gender-affirming care as evidence-based medicine

The AAP reaffirmed its policy supporting this care and authorized a systematic evidence review Sixteen state AGs filed suit in August 2025 arguing that federal enforcement actions amount to a de facto national ban.