Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee is calling for swift and appropriate action in response to children’s medical records from Texas Children’s Hospital being illicitly released to an individual not affiliated with the hospital. The medical records were published by The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and relate to children receiving gender-affirming care.

County Attorney Menefee issued the following statement:

“This illicit release of medical records puts children and their families at risk, and swift action must be taken to ensure that this does not happen again. I have spoken with representatives at Texas Children’s Hospital and understand that the hospital will fully investigate how this happened and notify all impacted families if their information was released. I expect they will fully disclose what they find to the United States Department of Health and Human Services. If a hospital employee leaked these medical records, they must be fired. If it was a hospital vendor, their contract must be terminated.

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that this happened as the Texas Legislature pushes bills to ban trans kids from receiving gender-affirming care, and elected officials in Austin push disturbing and false talking points that demonize LGBTQ+ families. If you care about Texas kids, you should be appalled that someone would be illicitly disclosing their medical records.

The Attorney General has used this violation of the personal information of minors to launch a legally baseless investigation, erroneously claiming that providing gender-affirming care violates Texas law. He is wrong. If providing this type of care for children were currently illegal, we wouldn’t see Republican legislators spending all their waking hours trying to pass SB14, which bans gender-affirming care.”



Unauthorized disclosures of medical records may violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA. The United State Department of Health and Human Services may investigate potential violations and issue penalties.