The Activist Connection

How the doctor at the center of the Texas Children's Hospital child sex-change scandal built an alliance with transgender activists.

Spencer Lindquist is a Field Reporter for The Daily Wire and a 2024 Logos Fellow. Follow him on X for more.

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Dr. Richard Ogden Roberts III is a pediatric endocrinologist at the Texas Children’s Hospital who’s administered puberty blocking and cross-sex hormone medications to young patients suffering from gender dysphoria. He was also one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that sought to halt a ban against child sex changes, leveraging his medical credentials as he worked alongside radical activist organizations.

Now he’s found himself at the center of a new scandal at the hospital, which has been enveloped in criticism after one whistleblower exposed the hospital for lying to the public about their offerings of transgender medical interventions to children and was then targeted by the federal government as a result.

New allegations that Roberts committed Medicaid fraud have cast further doubt on his so-called “gender-affirming care” operation, with a whistleblower claiming that the hospital “is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures” with the help of Roberts, who is now being investigated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton since the state bars the use of Medicaid funds for any and all medical interventions that seek to change people’s sex.

Roberts embodies the partnership between radical transgender ideologues and the medical establishment. A closer look at Robert’s effort to halt Texas’ ban on child sex changes indicates that the doctor formed an alliance with far-left ideologues and activist groups, many of which enjoy the backing of the pharmaceutical companies that stand to profit from transgenderism in the process.

Roberts himself has clearly adopted the core tenets of leftwing gender ideology. In one presentation on behalf of the Texas Children’s Hospital, Roberts repeated the line that child sex change procedures are “life saving and medically necessary” care, and even explained that he uses the preferred names and pronouns of “gender diverse” children behind the backs of parents.

“I will often ask patients by themselves if there’s a name that they use privately and that they would like me to use around them, and if they are comfortable with me using that name and their pronouns with parents,” the pediatric doctor told the audience.

It was fitting, then, when Roberts, a doctor ensnared by gender ideology, teamed up with professional transgender activists to try and stop the Texas bill.

One of the organizations listed alongside Roberts in the lawsuit against Texas’ bill in defense of children is GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality. The organization advocates for the use of sex change operations on children and maintains what it calls an “equality map” that documents legislation that allegedly harms transgender youth “by blocking their access to best-practice medical care.” GLMA counts Roberts as one of its members, indicating that the embattled doctor pays annual membership dues to the transgender activist organization.

PFLAG, one of the most powerful pro-transgender organizations in the country, was also a plaintiff alongside Roberts. The extreme organization directly promotes gender ideology to children and published a “transgender reading list for children.” The list includes “I Am Jazz,” a story about “a transgender child based on the real-life experience of Jazz Jennings,” as well as the “Gender Now Coloring Book,” which is “meant to provide reflection and support unity by showing multiple genders standing together.” There’s also “What Makes a Baby,” described as a “children’s book that takes gender out of making a baby.”

GLMA is backed by the pharmaceutical industry. Its website notes that it counts perhaps the single most powerful pharmaceutical lobbying organization, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), as a sponsor. PhRMA represents several different companies that produce drugs used by those attempting to modify their sex, including Abbvie, Bayer, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Teva US Speciality Medicines, and Eli Lilly.

The companies under its umbrella collectively produce drugs that are used to block puberty, as well as estrogen and testosterone drugs. PhRMA is no stranger to backing the transgender movement, which many of the companies it represents have a financial stake in. Together with Pfizer, the lobbying organization previously bankrolled a project from the Human Rights Coalition, an influential LGBT activist group, as it pushed gender ideology into hospitals across the country.

Novo Nordisk, another pharmaceutical company with financial interests in transgenderism, backs the organization that Roberts is a member of and that sued Texas alongside the doctor. The company produces six different estrogen drugs classified as estradiol, which can be used off-label in men who identify as women.

GLMA is also sponsored by Pfizer Rx Pathways, a project of the infamous pharmaceutical titan that produces drugs used by those who are attempting to change their sex. Pfizer, for example, has Aldactone, a product that has been called “the most commonly used androgen blocker in the U.S.,” by the University of California San Francisco Gender Affirming Health Program. There’s also Depo-Provera, a Pfizer product used to feminize men who identify as women, and Depo-Testosterone, an injection used by women who are attempting to become men. The pharmaceutical titan also makes Synarel, a drug that can block puberty. Synarel is a nasal spray and has been suggested as an alternative to injections.

GLMA isn’t the only transgender activist organization that receives funding from pharmaceutical interests and attempted to stop Texas’ bill, however.

Like GLMA, PFLAG too has taken money from pharmaceutical interests that stand to gain from child sex change attempts. Abbvie Pharmaceuticals, the company behind a puberty blocking drug called Lupron Depot that has been successfully used to chemically castrate sex offenders, previously indicated that it financially supported PFLAG, among other organizations that push child transgenderism.

Pharmaceutical companies had a role in funding both the plaintiffs in the case as well as the activist law firms that represented them.

The Transgender Law Center, which was among the organizations that represented Roberts and the other plaintiffs, also boasts big pharmaceutical backers. Nestled between the names of individual donors is Pfizer, which creates the aforementioned litany of drugs used in gender transition attempts, and Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the company behind an anti-androgen drug used to feminize men who identify as women. Lambda Legal, yet another pro-transgender organization that represented the plaintiffs, took money from Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the testosterone therapy drug Axiron.

As connections between activists and medical interests have become increasingly apparent, some have warned that an unholy alliance between the two was being formed.

“These medical interventions are costly, and they must be maintained for the lifetime of the user, generating significant profits for Big Pharma,” January Littlejohn, a Parent Advocate with Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire last year. “It is not surprising that big pharma would partner with an organization aiming to normalize a mental health issue from which they would profit immensely.”

This article was originally published in Daily Wire.