Eithan Haim, the young Texas surgeon who revealed that Texas Children’s Hospital was secretly performing gender transitions on minors after the hospital declared it had stopped these procedures, was in federal court Monday for his arraignment, where he entered a “not guilty” plea to the U.S. Department of Justice’s charges against him.
For blowing the whistle on procedures being done on minors that are now illegal in Texas, Haim is facing up to ten years in prison. The four-count indictment alleges that Haim obtained patient information “under false pretenses and with intent to cause malicious harm to TCH.” Haim, who provided evidence about the continuing gender transition treatments to conservative journalist Christopher Rufo, redacted patients’ names to protect their privacy.
He says that there indeed was malicious harm taking place at Texas Children’s—the largest children’s hospital in the country—but the harm was to the vulnerable patients being given life-altering and unproven treatments for their gender distress. “As I’ve maintained from the very beginning, I’ve done nothing wrong,” Haim told me. “As doctors we make an oath to do no harm. What the DOJ is doing is criminalizing that very oath.”
He acknowledged that he’s scared. “I risk losing everything,” he said. “Mostly I’m scared because I might miss the birth of my first child. But it’s scarier thinking about what kind of country we’re going to live in if this is allowed to stand.” (The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas did not respond to a request for comment.)
Haim is raising money for his legal defense at this GiveSendGo account. Read our original story about him here.
Emily Yoffe is a senior editor at The Free Press. You can follow her on X at @emilyyoffe. Read her report on the charges against Dr. Eithan Haim, “A Doctor Told the Truth. The Feds Showed Up at His Door.”
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