Top Lawyer Tied To Defunct Trans Program Hosting James Talarico Fundraiser

A top lawyer tied to a now-defunct transgender program for kids is hosting a high-dollar fundraiser on Saturday for Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, according to social media posts. 

The campaign event in Houston will be hosted by Afsheen Davis, senior vice president and general counsel for Texas Children’s Hospital. It comes just days after Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a final settlement with the hospital requiring it to establish what his office has described as the nation’s first-ever “detransition” clinic. 

“As an organization, we respect our team members’ rights to their own opinions and beliefs on political matters, and at the same time those pursuits are personal and do not represent the company or its position,” a hospital spokesperson told The Daily Wire. “It’s both common practice and an individual right for employees to host fundraising events in their personal capacity.”

The fundraiser, which was advertised at a Texas Trial Lawyers Association event, will also be hosted by Josh Davis, Afsheen Davis’ husband. Josh Davis is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association executive committee and runs a personal-injury law firm. 

The Daily Wire reached out to Talarico’s campaign and Davis for more details on the fundraiser.

Talarico and Paxton are locked in a fierce general election race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn, with multiple polls showing a close contest. 

Texas Trial Lawyers Association Instagram.

The settlement requires Texas Children’s to pay $10 million — roughly $8.6 million of it to the state — to resolve claims that the hospital billed Texas Medicaid for illegal transgender procedures on kids, including by using false diagnosis codes. The hospital must also establish a “detransition” clinic by the end of October 2026. Texas Children’s has denied violating the law.

Davis and the hospital are also defendants in a separate lawsuit involving the hospital’s former gender-transition program.

Dr. Eithan Haim, who worked at Texas Children’s, sued Davis and other hospital officials, accusing the hospital of lying about ending its transgender medical program and claiming it was still performing attempted transition procedures on children as young as 11.

During the Biden administration, federal prosecutors accused Haim of improperly accessing patients’ records. Haim said Davis was among those at the hospital who helped the Biden administration bring a case against him. Those charges were dropped shortly after Trump took office. 

In a lawsuit filed in January, Haim alleged that Davis and other hospital officials sought to have him “criminally charged and provided federal authorities the entire basis for the government’s investigation and subsequent indictment of Dr. Haim.”

Talarico’s past promotion of transgender ideology has been a focus of Republican attacks during the Senate race. While Talarico recently said he does not support transgender surgeries on kids, he voted against a 2023 law that protected minors from transgender surgeries and cross-sex hormone procedures.