U.S. Senate Democrat candidate James Talarico is facing scrutiny after campaigning with a former surgeon who performed gender-mutilative surgeries on minors, despite saying he does not support such procedures for children.
The scrutiny comes after Talarico appeared on the “Unity Over Division” podcast in June, where he said he opposes gender reassingment surgeries for minors.
However, days later, Talarico participated in the “Pride for Talarico” fundraising event in Austin. The event featured Dr. Dustin Reid, a board-certified plastic surgeon who specializes in what he describes as “gender-affirming surgeries.”
Reid, is a plastic surgeon at Restora Austin Plastic Surgery Centre in Austin. According to the practice’s website, he specializes in female-to-male chest masculization, male-to-female breast augmentation, and facial feminization surgery.
Fox News Digital reported that Reid performed surgeries on minors in “rare” cases until the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 4 in 2023, which prohibits physicians from performing certain gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers, or providing cross-sex hormone therapies to minors.
The law was challenged before the Texas Supreme Court, which ultimately upheld it as constitutional. In its opinion, the court wrote:
“We conclude that the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine.”
However, Reid’s practice website states that he is a member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, and follows the organzation’s guidelines for patients younger than 18.
Reid told Fox News that he had performed such surgeries on minors but said the cases were uncommon.
“There were occasions where someone would be under 18 and everyone involved in their care agreed that it was the best decision for this patient. But that was, like I said, rare because, for the most part, I like people to make the decision as an adult,” he said.
WPATH’s “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People,” recommends that health care professionals consider gender-affirming medical and surgical treatments for minors when certain criteria are met.
The criteria include meeting the diagnostic criteria for gender incongruence and demonstrating the emotional and cognitive maturity necessary to provide informed consent or assent for treatment.
Attorney General Ken Paxton who is running against Talarico in the U.S. Senate race, recently joined the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against WPATH. The lawsuit alleges the organization “falsely asserts that its recommendations are the result of rigorous scientific procedures and expert consensus, even though WPATH disregarded established guideline- development standards, ignored the results of its own evidence reviews, and removed age limits in response to external pressure rather than scientific evidence.”
Although Talarico recently said he opposes sex-change surgeries for minors, he voted against Senate Bill 14 during the 88th Legislative Session. The bill banned gender-mutilative surgeries and treatments for minors.
During a 2023 podcast appearance, Talarico said the legislation resulted from “Christofacism.” In a separate speech that if Jesus visited the Texas Legislature, he would say “Blessed are the trans children who are bullied.”
Paxton campaign spokeswoman Madison Cercy told Fox News that Talarico “is willing to sacrifice common sense at the altar of his extreme ideology, only to turn around and lie to Texans about the positions he has supported his entire career.”
Cercy also said Talarico “has a long history of denying biological reality, opposing protections for kids, and standing with the most radical activists in the country who have no regard for child safety.”
