Feds drop charges against Texas doctor accused of leaking transgender care data

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Federal prosecutors dropped their charges against a Dallas surgeon accused of leaking the records of underage patients’ gender transition-related care in what some conservative activists are calling a win for anti-transgender activism.

The request for dismissal, submitted by Jennifer Lowery, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, did not specify why the four counts of wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information against Dr. Eithan Haim were dropped.

Haim, a self-described whistleblower, was charged after he provided conservative activist Christopher Rufo with the records of children receiving gender transition-related care at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the largest pediatric hospital in the United States.

Rufo published the material in a May 2023 article, however the records have since been removed from the piece. While transgender care for minors was legal in 2022 when the records were sourced, the hospital publicly had said it would end providing the care after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the parents of children undergoing transition-related care be investigated for child abuse. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled Abbott had no grounds to order the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the families.

Haim never contested that he leaked the records, however he did maintain throughout the legal proceedings that no laws were broken because personally identifiable patient information was not disclosed.

The case quickly became a lightning rod for anti-transgender activists and politicians who describe Haim as a whistleblower for exposing an alleged “secret transgender program.” Transgender care in Texas, especially for minors, has long been under fire by Republicans in the state. Only weeks after Rufo published the records provided by Haim, Texas passed an outright ban on transition-related care for minors.

Transition-related care can include anything from mental health counseling and social affirmation of gender through pronoun changes or medical interventions like puberty blockers or surgery, however instances of physical treatment among youth are rare.

The dismissal follows an X post from Haim’s wife Andrea accusing Lowery of “weaponizing the DOJ” against her husband. The alleged weaponization of the justice system also has been a highlight of President Donald Trump’s campaign, who signed an executive order Monday claiming the Biden Administration had a systematic campaign of weaponized prosecution.

Texas House Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, was one of dozens of people congratulating Haim for the dropped charges, and said he spoke with Haim on the phone to congratulate him directly for the update.

“We still must get to the bottom of the potential crimes he exposed, for which he should've been praised... not prosecuted,” Harrison said in an X post Friday.

The case was set to begin a jury trial on Feb. 10, according to the court’s website.