The Highwire with Del Bigtree - WHISTLEBLOWER MD: EXPOSING SECRET PEDIATRIC GENDER TRANSITION PROGRAM AT NATION’S LARGEST HOSPITAL

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

General Surgeon, Eithan Haim, MD, details his harrowing story as a whistleblower who exposed the largest pediatric hospital in the country, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, lying about their pediatric gender transition programs. He details how the hospital continued and promoted its physicians to provide puberty blockers to minors despite publicly stating this program was halted, and how HHS sent agents to his house to investigate him under the Department of Justice after his story broke.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

I want to say on this topic that I've actually been very torn. You know, I always like to think of things in terms of black and white. I hate gray areas. I want legislation and laws to just say always or never. I don't like, well, sometimes here, but yeah, but then in this case, I just, it feels, it just doesn't feel like the way I like decisions to be made. And this is one of those topics that has really pushed me because on the one hand, all I do almost every day of my life, is fight for two things, medical freedom and parental rights, parental rights that the government doesn't own your child. You get to decide what's right for your child. And I've been in arguments

with my friends, especially on this issue. Because on this issue, on the one hand, you know, parents, I think they're being misguided, but there's other things they're being misguided on when it comes to take care of their children that they're going along with. Is the government just jump in there? you know, when you decide to say it's child abuse or something, when you give, you know, puberty blockers to children, and then the parents can't even make it me sure the child should be able to make that decision and the adult can make whatever decision they want, but aren't the parents the ones that we should trust these situations? Had a really almost heated conversation with a really good friend of mine who finally made

a point that I couldn't get around. And he said to me, you know, Del, we also outlaw, you know, female circumcision, even though there's other countries and cultures that believe that that's okay. It removes the ability for women to, you know, have pleasure and the different things that go on there. And we've decided that that's not okay. And in this case, we are castrating these children. And whether a parent has been misguided or not, you know, the government should step in there. I have just lightly stepped into that place. I'm sure all of you know, it's obvious, Del. I'll tell you, my knee-jerk reaction is not to bring the government in.

I'm sorry, it's just not. I would rather they stay out and we trust parents and educate them and get beyond it. But this one does sort of cross in that space. And so it does appear that, you know, in places like Texas is on the forefront of saying, that ain't allowed here, which is at the heart of this next story. That's exactly what Ken Paxton, the DA of Texas said. He said, here in Texas, we believe our laws support the fact that the child should be protected when child abuse is taking place. And AG Paxson declares so-called sex chain procedures on children and prescription of puberty blockers to be child abuse under Texas law.

That was back in February 21st of 2022. Texas Children's Hospital said, all right, I guess that's it. We're not doing that anymore. declared to the world, we've stopped it. But did they? Watch this. My dad is a doctor, and I saw how much his profession meant to him and how much he cared for his patients.

So that's the reason I went into medicine. I did medical school in Florida, and then I did my surgical training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. And when you're training for surgery, you're at a few different hospitals. One of those hospitals was Texas children. So we would spend a lot of time there.

In March of 2022, the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, had issued an opinion stating that, quote, unquote, this gender affirming care could be investigated as child abuse. Texas Children's Hospital had released a statement in March of 2022 that said they were unequivocally shutting down their transgender program because of the legal risks. It was very soon after that, I found out this was categorically undefiocally undefixt. true. People would tell me about how they were implanting these period block devices into 11, 12, 13 year old kids. They told me about how these kids had all these psychiatric issues that were going unmanaged and just being

attributed to this one thing. You know every indication was that this program was shut down, but behind closed doors they not only continued it but expanded it into a multi-disciplinary clinic. They were giving conferences where they were talking about concealing it. from the public. I knew I had a responsibility to do something about that. You know, I had a responsibility as a surgeon as an individual. So I had to make it known to the public. I'm honored to be joined right now by Dr. Aton Haim. Dr. Haim, thanks for taking the time to join us today. Yeah, thank you for having me on. This is a fairly complicated story wrapped around a very

complicated issue that we've been covering here at the high wire when it comes to transition. or, you know, gender blocking drugs, surgeries on children, an issue that is really shifted gears a lot in Europe. But I want to sort of unpack this a little bit and sort of your, to get an understanding of, you know, how your story comes into this. Here in Texas, you were a resident, correct? And one of the hospitals you were a resident at was Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, and for people who may not be familiar with what. that is after you finish medical school when you do your training afterwards in a chosen specialty so for internal medicine that might be three years for neurosurgery seven years for a general

surgery it's five years and i was at baylor college medicine and we spent a lot of time at texian children's hospital which is the biggest children's hospital in the world really an amazing place to train well okay and so surgery is general surgery is what's your uh specialty is is now, but that's what you were studying at that moment. And so, you know, this is a, you know, here in Texas, Ken Paxson, as we know, makes a statement basically, we're gonna investigate doctors that are doing this, and we sort of consider it child abuse

to be blocking gender or, you know, involved in these practices in young children. And so Texas Children's Hospital, biggest children's hospital in the United States of America, says we are not gonna do these procedures any longer due to legal implications. But you start seeing that there's a different story going on. Tell me about that.

How do you find out that they actually haven't stopped these procedures? Yeah, so I found out that they had not stopped because the people who were doing the procedures, the surgeries, had told me about them doing it. And it was in the months following that statement. And you brought up a really important part of that statement where they said, they were stopping because of the legal risks.

So they acknowledged that there was some criminal liability. Here it is, let me just read this from their statement. After assessing the Attorney General's and Governor's Actions, Texas Children's Hospital paused hormone-related prescription therapies for gender affirming services. This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications, the spokesperson added.

So that was basically the statement, we're not doing this. So now you have doctors that are like saying, yeah, we're doing these procedures. Yeah. And the thing is, I mean, I didn't believe it. Like, even after the first couple of times, even after it became more frequent in the months following, I just didn't believe it. Because I never thought in a million years that the hospital would ever do something like that. So I thought maybe it must have been that. Meaning you didn't think they would take the risk.

Is that what you're saying? I mean, it's such a risk adverse. industry, right? Like, we don't need law students. Is that what you're saying, that the risk was or what they were actually taking? I didn't, I wouldn't think that they would take the legal risk, but also I wouldn't think that they would lie to their patients, like the people they take care of, which is as a doctor, horrifying, because this is a children's hospital. And like, our currency as doctors is trust, right? That's like the only way that someone is able to have a relationship with us because when we take someone back to an operating room, right? Like they roll back,

they go to a room there, they've never been to there, surrounded by a bunch of strangers, they're unconscious, sedated, and paralyzed. And those people are going to cut them open. Like, that's what we do. So that trust has to be there in that relationship. So it was hard to believe. I thought it must have been that these were like holdover cases from before that statement. But the thing is, it was just becoming more frequent in the months following. The patients are being lied to. What do you mean by the patients are being lied to? Yeah.

So what I mean by that is when you have a family who brings their kid into Texas Children's Hospital, at that point after that statement, they believe that this is no longer happening at the hospital, that there's no risk to their kids being pulled into this pipeline where they're going to be started on blockers, where they're going to be manipulated into questioning their gender identity, right? Or being manipulated into believing they were born in the wrong sex. But what the reality is, when they would go into Texas Children's Hospital, that's exactly what they were doing. And, you know, that could be seen in the lectures that we had exposed.

Directors of the program were advising general pediatricians to ask about gender identity behind the backs of their parents. ask the patient themselves. We really want to create safe environments for these patients, and unfortunately not every patient who is gender diverse may have that safe environment at home, and it may not be safe to use their affirmed to name in front of family members or other individuals. And so asking in private probably the easiest way to go. Now, I've always thought a gender blocker was like a shot or a pill, but you're saying has a surgical element to it. is that what is that procedure yeah it's it's a good point um so comes in two different forms comes as

an injection that you can get every three months or for kids who don't tolerate the injection because you're awake for it and these are 10 11 year old kids so one of the most difficult things is to you know get one of these kids that's still to get an injection especially if it's every three months and typically the ones who are not able to tolerate those injections or ones who have other psychiatric comorbidies. So, for example, autism. So if a kid is not able to tolerate the injection, what they do is take them under general anesthesia and then implant a purely blocking device into their arm.

So that lasts instead of every three months, it lasts a longer period of time about one year. What is the process that takes you, gets you from, I think my kid's acting, you know, is having some difficulties with life to let me. put them under and have a gender blocking procedure? Yeah, well, it's the, the part where a kid is being put under anesthesia and then being operating on is the end point in a pipeline that starts much earlier. And it depends on the situation where that kid enters that pipeline, but many of them are started in the schools, whether it's a counselor, friends, teachers, you know, other people

in their social group who kind of introduce them to this gender ideology, especially kids who are entering puberty, right, who have problems going through adolescence. They're looking for answers to all their problems, and this is the answer for them. So they kind of, they get put into this pipeline that is offering them answers, offering them, you know, a type of community. But then you also have families that go into these clinics. And what the doctors do is they say, you know, do you want a living son or a dead daughter? And for the parents who may not be familiar with what exactly the implications of these procedures are, you know, it's a very easy thing for them to be intimidated into agreeing to having something like this done. But after our story came out, there was

another whistleblower at Texas Children's who came out in the story with Christopher Rufo. And this person said that she was horrified by what she was seeing in the clinic, where you had not only the kids, but the parents have no idea what the implications of these interventions were. Because essentially, what's happening is you're putting these children on a road to becoming sterile for the rest of their lives. I'm going to share a story with you, but also with our audience that we've covered before. For those of you watch right now, Now, this is a previous show we did about Luca, who takes us through exactly what Dr. Haim was discussed

in this pipeline. Take a look at this. I started to open up about the fact that I was like, oh, well, I don't really like my chest, or I don't like the fact I would got my period at that point. And I was just feeling like generally uncomfortable with like growing up into a woman at the time. I first started hearing about top surgery

is similar to chest binding, like in all the like online trans-spaces. As someone who was uncomfortable with their breasts and was wearing a binder at this point, like consistently almost like eight hours a day or more, I was like, maybe this will help. And I had talked about it with my therapist at this point a little bit. And from there, she was like, yeah, we could get you into someone in your city that can do this. My therapist had like sessions where I was not there and it was just my parents. They thought that like, okay, well, this is, this must be like an unobstable.

established like treatment plan in the medical like medical world if they're saying that this is okay we don't want our kid to like kill themselves so we're going to be supportive so it was during the summer of 2018 in july is when i was 16 years old and i had top surgery or double mastectomy i take responsibility for my part in it but i also can't be the only one i was a teenager on like who had a history of mental health issues at this point and approach with the idea of like hey I want to cut this part of myself off to feel better and the medical community went yeah okay it became no you're born in the wrong body there's something wrong with you and you need to be medicalized to fix this I mean you know Lucas story and similar to what you're saying and

what we're seeing in our investigation is one could almost say that the pharmaceutical industry that's involved this, maybe the doctors that are getting paid by it, but they're sort of maybe preying upon is too strong a word, but are focusing on people, you know, children that are having real psychiatric issues and even more, I think troubling is what you said, autism spectrum disorder. Children, we know that one of the things is feeling displaced from society, having difficulty with social interactions. Now they're being told you can fix that social difficulty you have. You're just the wrong sex. And so we're seeing a very large percentage of the children that are deciding to go through this. In fact, some people that I've known in my work

with autistic children in the last 10 years have recently reached out and say, now my child is transitioning exactly how you're reporting. Is that on purpose? Well, you know, I, I think that is what's happening in a lot of cases of these children, because you hear that story often enough in the detransitioners, where they go to a counselor, a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, and they say, I had all these problems, and then somehow it gets tied back to their gender. And then whoever the professional in the room is says, well, you know what, maybe you were born in the wrong body. And they say, all right, well, maybe that's the answer. And if they're going to offer that possible solution and all their problems can go away only if they take this drug or they get

this surgery, then that's a very tempting road to go now. And especially when these are the most vulnerable vulnerable population of people in our society, the people who rely on the adults in their lives to guide them towards the right direction, you know, who also have the least ability to understand the consequences for their actions. Like, of course, they're going to, you know, take this, you know, follow this road because everyone in their life is telling them it's the right way to go. And because the censorship is so prevalent within academic institutions, and I can personally attest to that because, I mean, I was there for five years.

There is no ability to question the, you know, the established dogma. And if you do, there are severe consequences to your career, whether being fired, not promoting anything. I would think, you know, finishing up residency is a very vulnerable time. You obviously want to come out with a great record. Have everybody saying great things about you. Your career is going to depend on that. So in 20, you know, so in 22 is when Ken Paxson makes this statement. That's when the hospital says, we're not doing that, but they really are behind the scenes.

You're hearing all these stories and then a law comes around SB 14 in 2023 that's basically going to make a law about making these procedures illegal in Texas so that nobody does it. And on the sort of eve of that, you know the hospital's lying. You're hearing these horrific stories as another whistleblower ultimately will attest to. and you decide this information I'm hearing and this evidence needs to come out, you remain anonymous, but you gave that information to a podcast and decided to go live with it. Let's just take a look at that really quickly. This is Christopher Rufo. I've been working with whistleblowers inside Texas Children's Hospital to expose the hospital's

child sex change program. Here's the basic background. Last year, executives at the hospital promised that they would stop all. such procedures, but I've obtained medical records indicating that they restarted the program just three days later, and they've been providing puberty blockers and other sex change hormones to children ranging in age from 11 to 17 years old. The doctors at Texas Children's call this gender-affirming care, but this is a deeply misleading eupomism. One doctor inside the clinic says that it is a, quote, house of horrors, that these procedures are lining up kids for

permanent medicalization and doing irreversible damage. I'd like to share a clip from Dr. Patrick O'Malley, a psychiatrist who identifies with they-them pronouns, who is really that starting point at Texas Children's bringing Keynes into the program and then lining them up for medicalization. So really the mother asked me, you know, what about my parental rights? My rights is a parent. You know, really asking me, can you call my child their... preferred name and pronouns.

Okay. So, and I had a student with me, and I said, you know, ma'am, you do have many parental rights, but I have to adhere to my own ethical standards as a physician. And I know the best thing to do for this child, their mental health, and really even their risk of suicide, is to provide, is to show them that respect

of using the pronouns that go out. using the name they go by. The whistleblower that I talked to who has worked closely with these patients says that while they may be externally happy for a time with puberty blockers, hormones, mastectomy surgeries, this person can sense that they're deeply unhappy internally. It hasn't actually solved their problems such as depression, anxiety, family trouble, relationship trouble. Let's be clear, these whistleblowers are coming forward, even anonymously, at grave risk to their careers, at grave risk to their status,

at grave risk to their financial well-being, because they believe that these children will wake up in 10 years. They're going to be permanently, surgically, and chemically mutilated. They're going to be really destroyed or ruined, and nobody is looking out for them. That seems like a massive risk

to leak that information out, given the position you were in. So take me through the thinking, how long were you thinking? about doing this and then what made you decide to sort of pull the trigger? Yeah. I mean, it's totally right because, I mean, it took me months to really pull the trigger and finally start reaching out to journalists in January of 2023 because, you know, once I found out they were doing these procedures, I didn't believe it, but then it became

more frequent. And then I discovered that the hospital was prioritizing it, you know, giving these grand round lectures. And then there was another conference where one of the social workers who referred patients to the program, explained how she bypasses scrutiny from governing medical bodies in Texas by, instead of calling or like documenting the consults, she would call in to avoid the paper trail. We started revamping with the, they were starting to CPS investigations. Typically, what will happen when I see a child or adolescent and it's time for HRT, you know,

I refer them to a pediatrician who's providing gender affirming care. We consult. I don't usually write a letter it's not that formal, it's usually just a phone call. But

we became concerned as an agency and as, you know, I was concerned, I can use my law, if I was going to be investigated by doing my duty as a clinical social worker and adhered to my social work ethics. And, you know, we just make sure we continue with vulgar for girls. I had to make sure I wasn't giving anything of writing to parents.

And at that point, I was like, I have to do something about this. this is too egregious for me not to. And what that really comes back to and to answer your question is, you know, when I became a doctor when I began my surgical training in 2018, like I took an oath to take care of my patients. That extends both in the clinic, in the operating room, but I, outside that. So if I see something happening in the hospital in my environment that is so egregious, it's my professional duty to do something.

but also my moral responsibility. Because I knew that if I just ignored this, went on with my life, I would never be able to live with myself because at some point I'm gonna have children and I'm gonna have to bring them into this world. And if I'm not willing to do anything to try to make this world better,

then what kind of future am I delivering to my children? Like there has to be something at some point that animates us to take a risk to do the right thing because I think for so long, people in my position in the professional world of medicine have been so scared, have been so timid about speaking out that we've let our profession become completely destroyed. But if we don't do something at this point,

there's gonna be no profession in the future for us to pass on to our children. So of course, I mean, if I didn't do something, how could I ever look at myself in the mirror? So, I mean, at that, once I made that realization, It became pretty easy, but it took me a long time to get to that point. I want to just focus a little bit. You said in your grand rounds and they were prioritizing the, what does that mean prioritizing?

How do you prioritize something that the rest of us think this is rare? It's rarely happening, right? How do you prioritize something that's rare? So a grand rounds lecture in a big academic hospital is a weekly lecture that's given to the entire department in the hospital. So in the case of Texas Children, that is the Department of Pediatrics, which is the biggest in the world. So whichever lectures, whichever topics they choose to give reflects the hospital's priority at that time.

So if there's a certain issue in pediatrics, they want to highlight, certain, you know, new developments in pediatrics, they want their faculty and the residents to learn about, they will talk about during grand rounds. So in January of 2023, the directors of the program that supposedly did not exist were given the opportunity to speak at the hospital's most prestigious lecture series, Grand Rouse. And in it, they were talking about their algorithmic approach to hormones, blockers, and 11, 12 year old kids, advising general pediatricians how to ask about gender identity behind the backs of their parents.

And at that point, I realized, like, this is not just some rogue doctor who's doing these interventions and the hospital doesn't know about it. No, this is something that goes all the way to the top of the administration, like the leadership, but also the leadership of the Department of Pediatrics. So they took the sign off the door, but then just prioritized it, you know. So even worse, they're basically saying. we're training, you know, pediatricians to ask a set of questions of children when their parents are in the room, maybe they're there for a physical or whatever, to sort of mind to see if they might be, you know, open to questioning, it seems, their sexuality in which point they get moved into this pipeline while their parents aren't aware of it to begin a conversation that

then ultimately ends in gender reaffirming proceedings. or yeah and and that's why it's such a betrayal public trust because they said this program didn't exist but they're doing the exact opposite but really spreading it to all the other specialties i mean they had uh social work psychology psychiatry endocrinology and then they were expanding it to all the general pediatrics which is which is a huge population of kids that were going to be exposed to this program. So yeah, that's a big deal. And that, you know, it's and once I started reaching out to journalists in January of 2023 after those lectures, I mean, I reached out to a lot of media organizations that you think would take a story like this. But I mean, I was, I was kind of

ignored by all of them because understandably, it's a crazy story. It's hard to believe that it's true. But Rufo hadn't taken the story at the perfect moment. And that was, I got in touch with him like a week and a half before the vote on that law SB 14. We have, I think we have some of the documents you provided Rufo. Let's just take a look at some of these. What am I looking at here? It says internal TCH documents. What is this we're looking at? Yeah. So what you can see by these documents and anyone who works, at, you know, a hospital or in the world of surgery, what they can see is that you have days procedures are taking place and then age of patients and then the procedures they're being done. And then on the right side of the screen, you can see a diagnosis, female to male transgender person, which is a diagnosis code. For 11 year old, that says an 11 year old child.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And also, so this right here um yeah so anyone too who works with the epic electronic medical system um this is the clinics yeah the bottom i see gender dysphoria and pediatric patient 12 year old female uh uh we see there it's the suprilin uh placement that is where they do the um peri blocking implant um into a kid under general anesthesia and the that dog in those documents that would be the surgeon right so if you have a patient who's being seen in a surgeon's clinic for puberty blockers you can assume that they that is a child who would not tolerate injections and has to undergo general

anesthesia for the implant and then you think about these parents that are the you know I mean it's this is a crazy story you've got the largest children's hospital in the United States of America they're this ever growing wide net across every department of pediatrics from psychology to, you know, just general, you know, pediatrics to sort of mine for these children that could come into this program. Then they tell these parents once they've got the kid thinking that this is their solution, if you don't do this for this child, your child will potentially commit suicide. And at that point, nobody's a doctor.

You're not a psychiatrist. They know what they're talking about. If I don't take, even if it sounds crazy, geez, I don't want to lose my child. I mean, the whole thing is so manipulative. Rufo gets this story out just prior to the vote for SB 14. This is his story. Doctors said that they would stop such interventions.

Whistleblower documents proved that they haven't. This story comes out. How does that vote end up going? Yeah. So, and I was the anonymous source in that story. Yeah, but I was just, you know, going on with my day. And it was funny because I was there working at the hospital and, you know, it was like nothing even happened because we were so busy with surgery. But in this other world, everything, all this is happening.

So it's covered in the news. But within 24 hours, that law SB 14 was passed with bipartisan support. And it was because our story came out the day before that there were multiple Democrats who voted in favor of it. And the reason I know this is because, you know, I've talked to the people who wrote that law, like Tom Oliverson, who was the Texas Senator who initiated that bill going through to the Senate. And they had printed out physical coffee. of this story and put it in front of every single member of the Texas Senate. Wow. So even if it helped a little bit, I mean, that was more than I would have ever expected. Amazing. So you're affecting policy in Texas.

When you did find out, what did that feel like? I mean, were you excited? Just was it, you know, what was the energy around it to just know that? Yeah. Yeah. It was surreal because I remember talking to Rufo, like, while it was happening the next couple of days. And it was surreal because I even know SB 14 was being voted on. I mean, I had just been cold emailing Rufo and a bunch of other people for five months. Right. And then finally they get back to me like a week and a half before. And then so it was like both of us were very excited.

And then he tells me like another whistleblower, got a hold of him within a day. It took me five months. It kind of made me feel like an idiot. It takes me so long to get a hold of him. And this other person just calls and leaves a voicemail. Right. Well, I mean, but it's always hardest to be the first one out there. And you paved the way.

And obviously that opened it up and people go, wait a minute. I know that story too. All right. But it doesn't really end there. You know, you have this, you know, anonymous victory. Rufo's got the information out. This law gets passed in Texas. But you get a knock at your door sometime later.

Tell me about that. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple days later, I mean, everything kind of dies down. And then I just go on with my life. And so this was May 16th, 2020, that was the day the story came out. May 17th was when SB 14 was voted on, got passed. And a month, like a month and a week later, June 23rd, 2023, was the day of my graduation from surgical training.

And this is one of the most of the most of the most of the month. most important days of my life, right? And it makes sense because you make so many sacrifices during those previous five years. You miss so many birthdays, important life events because you're training to become a surgeon. That the day you graduate is really, really big deal. So your family's in town. You know, I was getting ready for the ceremony later that night. It was a Friday around like 11, 12th in the early afternoon. So, you know, we're just getting ready. And then all of a sudden, I get an aggressive knock on the door. And I'm wearing some dumb t-shirt and I shuffle over.

I open the door and, you know, standing outside are two federal agents. And they tell me they're with health and human services. They show me their badges and tell me that they are investigating a case regarding medical records. And in that moment, you know, I kind of just freeze because, you know, you never imagine you would be in a situation like that. But in the back of my mind somewhere, I knew exactly what it was about because just a month before, we had challenged the dominant political ideology. Yeah. You know, the conduct we had exposed became illegal within 24 hours of the story coming out in a bill that was passed with bipartisan support. More whistleblowers came out, right?

They had, you know, for the second time in 14 months, the CEO said he was shutting down the program. So if a regular person like me could do something like that, then how many other people could do the same thing too? And that is evidenced by the other whistleblower, right? Right. So we knew that they were going to try to make an example as me. And they were there that day to intimidate and to, you know, instill fear. But as they've come to find out, they knocked on the wrong door. At that point, were they asking any questions or were they just introducing themselves?

and letting you know we're watching you. Like what exactly, I mean, talk about a buzz kill. I mean, you know, most important day of your life. And I'm sure that's now on the back burner as far as things you're thinking about. Yeah, well, it's kind of a funny story. But, I mean, now it's kind of a funny story. But so didn't know what to do, right, when they were in the doorway. It seems like a very awkward situation.

Didn't, right? So I invite them in, we sit down. And they said they wanted to do an interview with me. So they start pulling out like a tripod, start setting up a camera, but then my wife comes out. My wife's a brilliant attorney, and at the time she had been hired

as an assistant US attorney in the Northern District of Texas with DOJ incidentally. And she was undergoing a background check, and that plays an important role later in the story. But these agents didn't know. So we sit down and then she sits down, and then we look at each other,

more like we excuse ourselves to our bedroom. And, you know, we close the door and we say, you know what, we should definitely not talk to these people without an attorney present. So I think my wife gave me that brilliant legal advice. Totally. We go back out, right? And we tell them that, you know, we say, you know, we appreciate you guys coming, but, you know, we won't speak with you guys without an attorney present.

And they say, okay, no problem. But before leaving, they hand me a target letter. And that letter just informed me that I was a potential target of a criminal investigation. I'll read this. Dear Mr. Hame, this office is involved in an investigation dealing with federal law violations. You are a potential target in this criminal investigation. You're invited to meet with the prosecutor about these matters at the United States Attorney's Office, along with an attorney of your choosing, if you so wish, to discuss the investigation.

Seems pretty serious. You got a lawyer in the house. everybody should have one of those in moments like this for sure yeah and i was just like to point out if in that letter if you pulled up you can see in the top right corner it says via hand delivery and and it's kind of curious as to why hand delivery right like my criminal record goes to like detention in fourth grade right like i mean why not email me why not send me a letter in the mail Like why show up on the one most important days of my life a few hours before the graduation ceremony? So, you know, a few minutes after the door opens, right, the door closes, they leave.

And my wife and I are sitting there and we know that from that moment our lives would be, you know, different forever, right? That there was that we had a decision to make, right? Do we fight this or do we try to, you know, comply with them, right? Do we take part in an investigation that we know is fundamentally corrupt? Because at that moment, I had no doubt that what they were doing was attempting to silence me as a whistleblower. Because there was no legal statute that was violated. And at that point in June of 2023, there was more than enough evidence from the past few years. that the federal government was sending the DOJ after whistleblowers and targeting their political opponents.

So, you know, of course, it was not a mystery as to why they were there. So I hadn't understood that, you know, I was just in that situation. So, you know, would we just kneel to this ideology or would we fight back? And what we decided to do was fight back. And that's exactly what we did. So, you know, what would we do in that situation while we, you know, opened some champagne and drank it on our patio and, you know, listen to Vietnam war music, you know, playing our war strategy and how to fight back. Yeah. I mean, it sounds kind of crazy, but it's like, what are you doing that situation? There's nothing to do. Like, if, if just like for the same reason that I came out as a whistleblower in the first place, like, if I'm not willing to do this for the future of my children, then. And if I'm not willing to fight against this corrupt investigation, then what kind of world am I delivering my children into?

Because my wife is 18 weeks pregnant, right? We're having our first kid. And like, I want her to grow up and have the same opportunity as I had. But if she goes into medicine and she does the right thing, she does what's virtuous and fulfills her professional responsibility, I don't want her to be targeted by the most powerful federal Leviathan in the history of the world. So that day, you know, there was no option for us. Like we had to fight back.

We had to do it with every fiber of our being. What is the accusation being made? What are the sort of the charges that you have been dealing with? What did they try? I mean, obviously, they have to manufacture something because there's nothing there. Yeah. It's a curious question because I really couldn't give you an answer. And I don't think they really understand either.

But, and that can be, you know, for anyone who's wondering, you know, they can look at it themselves because from that day, and then for about five or six months after that, you know, we went to this kind of legal purgatory. And my attorneys had blown the whistle themselves to Congress with what they had experienced coming from the Department of Justice in this prosecutor in particular. And the conduct was so egregious that they felt obligated to. And what their letter outlines that they sent to Congress is that you have someone who, this prosecutor, who is going after a whistleblower in a malicious prosecution, who, you know, in the very initial part of it, didn't even know what she was investigating. And even though she didn't understand what the facts of the case were, she did enough research to find out that my wife was undergoing a background check to become an assistant U.S. attorney

and had brought that up and said, you know, she was surprised that Andrea had interfered with this investigation in that she won't have any problems unless she continues to become difficult. And that's something that's outlined in that letter. And if there was any part of any part of that letter that was untrue or any part of my story that was untrue, then you know that there's a. cease and assist letter waiting on their desk waiting to be sent but hasn't been sent and we've told this story to tens of millions of people so right but still i mean is this investigation still ongoing at this moment right now we have no idea okay i have no idea but yeah i mean what they said

was that there was patient have confidentiality but of course i mean that doesn't apply um or whether it was access but i worked there right so there were there was no credence to any of their allegations and but it makes sense as to why they would try to target someone like me because you know for a doctor especially someone in my position who's just starting their career if you have federal agents at your door people are going to just admit to something right just to make it all go away and and and just to get on with their lives but i mean i just refuse to do that. And I feel like because we fought back that, you know, I'm sure this is sort of a question I really ask a lot of the guests. What do you think is really going on here? I mean,

isn't it a bit odd that you're dealing with Texas, a Texas law, SB 14, you have a local hospital, all this is local and then suddenly health and human services, you sort of have this, you know, outside the state. What is the agenda? Like, why do they care? Yeah, and I think it's, you bring up a really, really good point because when you think about the time frame between

the story coming out on May 16th and then showing up on my door, June 23rd, that is a remarkably, remarkably fast period of, like a very short period of time. Yeah. For them to mobilize federal resources, get a investigation, complete, assign a assistant U.S. attorney, find out where I live, find out when I'm going to be home, when my graduation is, and then send those people to my door in a plan, you know, to interview me. So we know that's a very short time frame because my wife is an assistant U.S. attorney

and works with HHS on cases in the healthcare industry. So we know for a fact that things like this take like over a year. Oh no, trust me. I sue Health of Human Services really almost for a living with this show. We just deal with the Department of Justice when we asked to just see the, you know, the Pfizer records on the COVID vaccine. They wanted 75 years to provide it. So I'm well aware of how much time they think they need to get around to doing something. Yeah, but when they're when they're motivated, they can mobilize. all these resources that no one thought could be done at the speed of life and then really deploy them in a expeditious manner. And especially when it comes to going after innocent

Americans, you know, it shows where their priorities are. But to answer your question specifically, I think this is a priority of the current administration, especially the current leadership of health and human services. And you can see that in their federal regulations and their orders that they are trying to mandate into the health care industry. For example, I believe it's Rule 1557, which states that healthcare workers have to abide by preferred pronouns. They have to include it in the medical records. So if you have a man who believes he's a woman, you have to include that in your documentation, which of course makes things profoundly dangerous and very confusing.

And when you're operating on people, that's something that can introduce a unimaginable degree of risk into these chaotic, unpredictable situations. Wow. Are you concerned at all that this affects your career now? I mean, you're still speaking out. We won't get into, you know, you are in practice now. are you do you feel like you're at risk continue to tell this story well yeah i think that of course i think i'm always going to be at risk if you stand up and and do something like this of course you know luckily for me i was i had a job uh you know like a couple of months i had signed a

contract before all of this happened and um you know i work in a place where you know in a very small town outside of Dallas where you know it's small town America where people still know each other's names and um people still look at this and see that see it for what it is which is child abuse um and you know the the the major way it's affected my job is that you know i get letters every week from people who thank me for speaking out and and and i feel privileged and honored to to get those truly um so I mean, I'm in a busy practice to operate. You know, I've been in my practice just for about six months and already a couple hundred cases. Wow.

Big Surgery. So for you. Yeah, very busy. When you think about all that time as you were watching the story, is that from that time, that hospital is prioritizing all these cases in the grand rounds, one of the things that, you know, you talk about is, you know, one of the things that we hear that they say is that, oh, well, this is temporary. always undo it. You can reverse it if you, you know, this is just these gender blockers. It's not permanent. I've heard Lucas perspective. She had some permanent things done and then is trying to undo that. But from a doctor's perspective, can you help me understand where are we at with gender blocking? Is that, I mean, and puberty blocking. Is that a temporary solution that can be

undone? It's, uh, the way it's prescribed by these doctors, it is irreversible. And there's a story from a journalist named Megan Brock. And it is these never released videos from W-Path, which is the world professional association for transgender health. And these were videos that were never supposed to be seen by the public, but you have one of the doctors in these videos, you pretty much admit that the way they're prescribing these blockers is.

is not reversible at all. We talk about puberty suppression as reversible. Okay. I'm adding an asterisk to it. It might not be a popular asterisk to add. It's reversible if you were to stop it. Okay, so that's a hypothetical. How often do people go on to blockers with the intention of just stopping it and seeing what happens?

Right. So what's challenging is that it does prevent young people ultimately, who are appropriate to move forward with more irreversible treatments to prevent them from going through two puberties. We all know that one puberty is difficult enough. So if you go through two puberty, think about how challenging that can be for someone, okay? So that's the benefit of puberty suppression,

and one does not develop the incorrect puberty changes for them. Okay. But there's challenges with puberty suppression that we have to acknowledge. And that's why it's reversible asterisk. One cannot be on puberty suppression endlessly. Say you give one of these blockers to a child, maybe one time and it lasts for a few months,

but they never go on after that. Yeah, you can't really say it's reversible, but the effects are limited. Because you gave the drugs to this child, it can never be reversed because it's already been done. You can't change what's already been done to human physiology. So you can necessarily say it's reversible. What you can say is that the effects are minimal. But in the case of the quote unquote gender affirming care guidelines,

they are meant to be on puberty blockers for the entirety of puberty, then meant to go on to cross-sex hormones and then surgeries. Any alternatives or like, like, exit ramps are blocked with the threat of their own suicide. So if one of these children were saying, you know what, I actually think that I am, these are not for me, right, that I want to pursue something else. Well, these doctors say, well, that's conversion therapy and you're at risk for suicide. So they're blocking those potential pathways, which is why that 95, 98% of the children who are started on puberty blockers 10, 11, 12 years old at Tanner stage two, which is the pre-puberal sexual development stage before the onset of puberty where they have, like before the onset

of secondary sexual characteristics like the growth of breast, the growth of penile tissue and pubic hair, you know, 95, 98% of those kids go on to get cross-sex hormones who are blocked because of the way these protocols are developed and guided. Yeah. Wow. It's really an incredible story. And I think, you know, you're giving us a view inside of how this system and this machinery works. What are your thoughts now as you think of, you know, your own children,

but for all the people that watch our show and their friends out there, what should your average person that's got a child? I mean, and I have friends that have reached out to me and said, Delian, I know you're covering this issue. I will tell you we have a child that is having some form of gender dysphoria and is, there's nowhere to go for us if we want to try a different route through this. Every psychiatrist we find, every, they're all saying the same. thing. They got to go on gender blockers. They're going to commit suicide. And, you know, these are

people that, I mean, I'm not putting down the people that get sucked into that. I get how that happens. But these are like my people that actually realize there might be something going on. And they can't find a therapist anywhere to take their side that maybe there's another approach. I mean, this thing is sort of systemic through all pediatric care and psychology right now. Yeah. So what you should do is if you know those people or if anyone, is listening who is in that situation and they should email me and I can put them in contact with therapists who will who will do the right thing and guide them through whatever problems they are going through right because you have to tell these children that they're perfect the way

they are that going through puberty is hard and being able to get through those challenges will that they'll become stronger for it and like they'll take the way they are that those lessons that they learn during those times into adulthood and that will make them better. But really, yeah. So if you know those people, you should tell them email me. Email me at A-Tonheim at Proton.me. Really. Okay.

That's fine. That's my personal email. E-I-H-A-N-H-A-I-M-M- is married. People have before and they're saying the same thing. Like this is a major problem and I have no idea where to go and, yeah, I'll respond and I'll them in the right direction um fantastic yeah because it's it's horrifying there's especially ever since i came out you know you realize how there's these huge networks of parents even in the dallas area who have banded together who have children who've fallen into this pipeline and you have the the stories

are absolutely heartbreaking because you have kids um you know and their parents are great parents but their kids were influenced by someone in their school and Without the parents knowing, they come out one day and say that, you know what, I'm transgender and I need these blockers or these hormones. And if I don't get it, I'm going to kill myself. And the parents are so surprised that they have no idea how to respond. But these parents have formed these groups in big cities. And it's kind of like this underground network of families who support each other. and at least in the area in Texas,

I know all these people because I've been in contact with them and they're very supportive and they'll do, they do a lot. I mean, it's a entirely different story, but what these parents have done, you know, behind the scenes is pretty amazing. Yeah, Warrior parents is, you know, a phenomenon. I feel lucky, especially Warrior moms and many of the work that I do that have,

just figure out a way through and are passing laws and working with, you know, politicians and things to make changes. I want to really thank you for taking time. I want to thank you for being so brave. Man, this world will be a better place that people would just, you know, come out, speak the truth, speak your mind, do what's right,

you know. It's so scary because it's so rare. I think if we had more people like you, we would find the thing, this whole thing we get cleaned up a lot quicker. I know you have ongoing legal expenses as you're beating back to the Department of Justice or Health and Human Services and whatever's going on there.

Do you have a page or something where people can help you out? Yeah, yeah. So we have a Givesendgo. It's gifsengo.com forward slash Texas underscore whistleblower. Okay. And, you know, it's important for people know, I mean, you know, we've spent over $10,000 in these legal expenses because we knew we had to fight back.

And I don't say that as like, you know, as like I'm a victim, right? Because, you know, it's like a privilege to be able to take on this fight and push back. But really at this point, we know that this has to be just as much about offense as it is about defense. Right. So much of that legal fund is going towards offensive measures to hold the individuals who've abused their authority accountable. And that's exactly what we're doing. So my attorneys had sent this letter to Congress to Jim Jordan, who is in charge of the House Subcommittee on the weaponization of the DOJ. And our goal is to get a investigation into the hospitals, the Department of Justice for using their authority to go after whistleblowers.

Because we can't live in a country where this is able to go unchallenged, where these people are able to remain in their positions. Because if I just tell this story, it's meaningless, right? Yeah. It doesn't mean anything unless we translate that to results. And what those results are are these people not being in their positions anymore, not only in DOJ, but also in HHS, but also with the hospital too. Because Texas Children's is really the best hospitals in the world. They do some of the best work. I mean, I worked there for years, five years.

But you have this segment of the administration of the hospital who have violated the trust that their patients placed in them. And they have to be held accountable for doing that. Yes, indeed. Dr. Hym, I want to thank you for taking time. Thank you for being brave, for stepping out. You're really a great representation of what we want more out of doctors. It's really scary how much they seem to tow the line, whatever they're told in grand rounds they roll with, and we've seen that in so many different ways. I'm right there with you. I love that you are bringing pressure, that you're bringing this case to Jim Jordan and to representatives and looking to get an investigation into the weaponization of DOJ, working with regulatory agencies like HHS, all of this stuff. It's so scary how health is being, has like a police.

force around it now and the decisions that we make it's just not where we should be anywhere in the world but certainly not the united states of america that's supposed to be practicing uh freedom freedom of speech freedom of information uh freedom of medical choice all of it so very important story and i want to thank you for taking the time sharing that with us today yeah and thank you so much for having me all it really is it's a privilege to be able to talk to you all right you take care and then keep us posting as things go along. Hopefully you're able to just shut this down.

You'll just be next time when you're really bringing to Casey and got on the ropes. So let us know, okay? Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.