Mississippi Today
Mississippi lawmaker cited trans teen surgeries that never actually happened
Mississippi lawmaker cited trans teen surgeries that never actually happened
Sen. Joey Fillingane, defending a controversial bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, said on the Senate floor Tuesday he’d recently spoken with a Hattiesburg-based plastic surgeon who told him he’d performed gender-confirmation surgery on 17-year-old trans kids.
That plastic surgeon, contacted Wednesday by Mississippi Today, says he didn’t tell Fillingane that and wants the senator to recant his statement.
Though lawmakers this session have fast-tracked House Bill 1125 – which would ban gender-affirming care including hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender-confirmation surgery for minors – they had been unable to identify any in-state surgeons that have operated on trans youth.
That is, until this past Tuesday, when Fillingane presented the bill to the Senate. He took many by surprise when he said he’d talked to “plastic surgeons in Hattiesburg” who told him they had “on occasion” performed gender-confirmation surgeries on 17-year-olds with parental consent.
“I don’t think it’s often,” Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said on the Senate floor. “I don’t want to make it sound like it’s rampant or it happens a lot, but with one plastic surgeon friend of mine that I’ve spoken with in Hattiesburg just this weekend, he confirmed that, ‘Yeah, I can’t give you specifics, but yeah, I’ve done this.’”
Paul Talbot, who founded the Plastic Surgery Center of Hattiesburg in 1998, told Mississippi Today he is the surgeon Fillingane talked to. He recalled the recent conversation with Fillingane — which took place after the men ran into each other at Revolution Fitness in Hattiesburg — differently.
“It was a two-minute conversation,” Talbot said. “I was on one elliptical, he was on the other.”
While they were exercising, Talbot said he told Fillingane he has taken on trans adults as clients but has never performed surgery on trans kids.
“I’ve never done anybody (trans) under the age of 18,” Talbot told Mississippi Today. “He must’ve misheard that because no, we’ve never done that. Never had someone ask me under 18 to do it.”
Talbot said he may have told Fillingane he might consider performing surgery on a trans teenager under certain circumstances, but he probably would not do it. (International organizations that set standards for gender-affirming care say surgery is appropriate for trans youth in some cases.)
“If I’m gonna do it for you, one is you gotta be 18,” he said. “Two, I need a letter from your psychiatrist that says you’re stable enough and you know what you’re doing before I’ll even consider it.”
It wasn’t a big deal to talk to Fillingane about HB 1125, Talbot said, because the two have been friends for more than 10 years, and it seemed like the senator was curious about his experience as a surgeon.
He doesn’t want Fillingane to feel called out but said that it is a shame this misunderstanding is now “part of the record” of the bill.
“For the political climate in Mississippi, it’s probably a good thing for him,” Talbot said. “But for trans people, it’s probably a bad thing for them.”
Speaking to Mississippi Today in his office Thursday, Fillingane wouldn’t say that he spoke with Talbot over the weekend, but he said he only spoke to one plastic surgeon who he knows “from the gym.”
“I’m not gonna confirm or deny the person, but I heard what I heard, obviously,” Fillingane said. “I was speaking on that bill, so to whomever I was speaking with, I don’t know how one could mishear something. You’re talking about a specific bill that deals with this specific issue of surgeries related to folks who are trying to transition from one sex to the other.”
Fillingane added that he’s had “a bunch” of other conversations about HB 1125, including one with the Mississippi State Medical Association’s government relations staffer, who said the organization has no position on the bill.
“One conversation, whether it was misheard or not, certainly does not comprise the entirety of my due diligence on this bill,” Fillingane said.
After Mississippi Today spoke with Fillingane, he sent Talbot a text apologizing “for any unwanted attention you may have received from the HB 1125 coverage.”
“I wanted you to know that I never told them press your name but it seems they have figured it out because I was ambushed by a reporter from MS Today earlier today because I had said I had spoken with a plastic surgeon friend of mine from Hattiesburg about the bill,” he wrote. “They apparently pieced it together but I would never confirm nor deny who it was that I had spoken with but I apologize anyway.”
It’s likely that HB 1125, which passed the Senate on Tuesday along party lines, would have been headed to the governor’s desk whether or not Fillingane had claimed to find a surgeon in Mississippi who has performed gender-confirmation surgery on trans minors.
Regardless of the outcome of his conversation at the gym, Fillingane said he would have supported the bill.
“Even if you were to accept for the sake of argument that these particular surgeries don’t happen at all or certainly very often in this state, so therefore we don’t need this bill, I think (that) misses the larger point,” he said. “There are other parts of this bill, i.e. the prescription of puberty blocking drugs and the prescribing of cross hormone therapies, that I think we all can admit is in fact happening in Mississippi.”
Other powerful elected officials, like Gov. Tate Reeves, have claimed with no proof that gender-confirmation surgery is harming Mississippi children.
“While some in our country push surgical mutilation onto 11 year olds, even here in Mississippi, even liberal darlings like Finland and Denmark and Sweden don’t allow these surgeries to be performed on kids who are under the age of 18,” Reeves said in his State of the State address.
Similar claims misrepresent just how difficult it is for trans kids in Mississippi to access gender-affirming care, advocates and in-state providers say.
There is just one clinic in the state — Spectrum: The Other Clinic in Hattiesburg — that currently prescribes puberty blockers and hormones to teenagers 16 years or older. Younger trans kids and their families must go out of state to access these medications, which often aren’t covered by insurance and can be costly, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Rob Hill, the state director of the Human Rights Campaign Mississippi, said he is angry that Fillingane, Reeves and other lawmakers have spread misinformation this session about gender-affirming care because it endangers already vulnerable trans kids. Gender-affirming care is evidence-based and multiple studies have shown it significantly reduces suicidality among trans kids who receive it.
Fillingane is “somebody that touts his faith very often, and I would say that this is not a faithful act,” Hill said. “What the lieutenant governor did, what the speaker did and what the governor’s ultimately going to do — and those who voted for this legislation — is not faithful … it was harmful.”
The misinformation and lack of research by lawmakers is typical for bills that take on “culture war” issues in Mississippi. In 2021, lawmakers could not identify any complaints about trans athletes in Mississippi despite banning their participation on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Last year, many lawmakers were repeatedly asked to correctly define “critical race theory” and could not.
But this session, Fillingane sought to do what no other Republican lawmaker had done so far in the debate around HB 1125: Talk to actual providers of gender-affirming care in Mississippi. On Monday, he invited Stacie and Lee Pace, the owners of Spectrum: The Other Clinic, to meet with him in his office about the care they provide.
At the gym, Talbot recalled a more casual conversation.
“This was no big formal thing where you’re taking notes or anything like that,” he said, noting that Fillingane’s questions were about what he does and how many trans people he’s operated “as far as, is it a big number.”
Talbot estimated he has performed chest surgery on five trans adults roughly the ages of 24 or 25 who had psychiatric letters, which is what he says he told Fillingane.
In general, Talbot said he doesn’t operate on people under 18 because that’s what he believes is moral. He said most surgeons in Mississippi do the same.
“I wouldn’t bend that rule just because we’re doing a gender transition,” he said.
There’s only a few instances in which Talbot would, like a congential condition that results in substantially uneven breasts. Talbot also gave this example: “She’s gonna be 18 in a month or two, and so you’re going to college, where, you know, before you go to college, every body knows your body image before you get there. Mom’s on board, and it seems like a reasonable thing. Yes, yeah, I’ve done that. But again, that’s rare.”
The gender binary is not as clear-cut as some Mississippians might think, Talbot said. He thinks of cosmetic procedures for cis people as on the same spectrum as those for trans people.
“Typically once you have them draped out in the operating room ready to do surgery, I couldn’t tell if it’s a boy or girl lying on the table,” he said.
There’s no difference, he said, when it comes to the actual procedure: A mastectomy for a cis woman is performed exactly the same way as “top surgery” on a trans man. Still, in Mississippi and across the country, trans people face more barriers in obtaining the same procedures that cis people can get with little questions asked.
“I don’t put a big weight on transitioning,” Talbot said. “I mean, we screen them, I think, better. … We probably find out a lot more information. When it comes down to doing the surgery, it’s just another operation I’ve done 15,000 times, and this one’s no different from the last 15,000.”
All Mississippians should be able to get plastic surgery if they can pay for it, Talbot said. That’s why he doesn’t take insurance.
“There’s lots of girls, thank goodness, walking around with small breasts that want big breasts,” he said. “You don’t get them just because you’ve got small breasts. It’s the same thing to me.”
As the two were exercising, Talbot said he told Fillingane that he doesn’t think House Bill 1125 is a good idea.
“I don’t like them reducing what people can do or limiting what people can do – for anybody, for any group,” Talbot said. “It doesn’t seem right.”
The next time he sees Fillingane at the gym, Talbot said he’ll ask him to take back his comments.
“When I see Joey, I’ll have to say to him, ‘Hey, you need to recant that or whatever because no I’ve never done that,’” Talbot said. “Again, he was on the (elliptical), I was on the (elliptical). It could easily have been misunderstood, I would think.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center has acquired Canton-based Merit Health Madison and is preparing to move a pediatric clinic to Madison, continuing a trend of moving services to Jackson’s suburbs.
The 67-bed hospital, now called UMMC Madison, will provide a wide range of community hospital services, including emergency services, medical-surgical care, intensive care, cardiology, neurology, general surgery and radiology services. It also will serve as a training site for medical students, and it plans to offer OB-GYN care in the future.
“As Mississippi’s only academic medical center, we must continue to be focused on our three-part mission to educate the next generation of health care providers, conduct impactful research and deliver accessible high-quality health care,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC’s vice chancellor of health affairs, said in a statement. “Every decision we make is rooted in our mission.”
The new facility will help address space constraints at the medical center’s main campus in Jackson by freeing up hospital beds, imaging services and operating areas, said Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs.
UMMC physicians have performed surgeries and other procedures at the hospital in Madison since 2019. UMMC became the full owner of the hospital May 1 after purchasing it from Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems.
The Batson Kids Clinic, which offers pediatric primary care, will move to the former Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine location in Madison. This space will allow the medical center to offer pediatric primary care and specialty services and resolve space issues that prevent the clinic from adding new providers, according to Institutions of Higher Learning board minutes.
A UMMC spokesperson did not respond to questions about the services that will be offered at the clinic or when it will begin accepting patients.
The Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, a pediatric subspecialty clinic, closed last year as a result of a settlement in a seven-year legal battle between the clinic and UMMC in a federal trade secrets lawsuit.
The changes come after the opening of UMMC’s Colony Park South clinic in Ridgeland in February. The clinic offers a range of specialty outpatient services, including surgical services. Another Ridgeland UMMC clinic, Colony Park North, will open in 2026.
The expansion of UMMC clinical services to Madison County has been criticized by state lawmakers and Jackson city leaders. The medical center does not need state approval to open new educational facilities. Critics say UMMC has used this exemption to locate facilities in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods outside Jackson while reducing services in the city.
UMMC did not respond to a request for comment about its movement of services to Madison County.
UMMC began removing clinical services this year from Jackson Medical Mall, which is in a majority-Black neighborhood with a high poverty rate. The medical center plans to reduce its square footage at the mall by about 75% in the next year.
The movement of health care services from Jackson to the suburbs is a “very troubling trend” that will make it more difficult for Jackson residents to access care, Democratic state Sen. John Horhn, who will become Jackson’s mayor July 1, previously told Mississippi Today.
Lawmakers sought to rein in UMMC’s expansion outside Jackson this year by passing a bill that would require the medical center to receive state approval before opening new educational medical facilities in areas other than the vicinity of its main campus and Jackson Medical Mall. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed the legislation, saying he opposed an unrelated provision in the bill.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post UMMC hospital madison county appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The article presents a primarily factual report on UMMC’s expansion into Madison County, outlining the medical center’s services and strategic decisions while including critiques from Democratic leaders and local officials about the suburban shift. The inclusion of concerns over equity and access—highlighting that the expansion is occurring in wealthier, whiter suburbs at the expense of services in majority-Black, poorer neighborhoods—leans the piece toward a center-left perspective, emphasizing social justice and community impact. However, the article maintains a measured tone by presenting statements from UMMC representatives and government officials without overt editorializing, thus keeping the overall coverage grounded in balanced reporting with a slight progressive framing.
Nationally known comedian Rita Brent will host the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s “Medgar at 100” Concert on June 28.
Tickets go on sale Saturday, June 14, and can be ordered on the institute’s website.
The concert will take place at the Jackson Convention Complex and is the capstone event of the “Medgar at 100” Celebration. Organizers are calling the event “a cultural tribute and concert honoring the enduring legacy of Medgar Wiley Evers.”
“My father believed in the power of people coming together — not just in protest, but in joy and purpose, and my mother and father loved music,” said Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the institute. “This evening is about honoring his legacy with soul, celebration, and a shared commitment to carry his work forward. Through music and unity, we are creating space for remembrance, resilience, and the rising voices of a new generation.”
In addition to Brent, other featured performers include: actress, comedian and singer Tisha Campbell; soul R&B powerhouse Leela James; and Grammy award-winning artist, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Q Parker and Friends.
Organizers said the concert is also “a call to action — a gathering rooted in remembrance, resistance, and renewal.”
Proceeds from the event will go to support the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s mission to “advance civic engagement, develop youth leadership, and continue the fight for justice in Mississippi and beyond.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Rita Brent, Q Parker headline 'Medgar at 100' Concert appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article presents a straightforward, factual report on the upcoming “Medgar at 100” concert honoring civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers. The tone is respectful and celebratory, focusing on the event’s cultural and community significance without expressing a political stance or ideological bias. It quotes organizers and highlights performers while emphasizing themes of remembrance, unity, and justice. The coverage remains neutral by reporting the event details and mission of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute without editorializing or promoting a specific political viewpoint. Overall, it maintains balanced and informative reporting.
Residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments in Jackson are left wondering what to do next after months dealing with trash pileups, property theft and the possibility of water shutoffs due to the property owner skipping out on the bill.
On Sunday, Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley, city attorney Drew Martin and code enforcement officers discussed next steps for the complex, which, since April 30, has been without a property manager.
“How are you all cracking down on other possible fraudulent property managers around Jackson?” one woman asked Martin.
“ We don’t know they’re there until we know they’re there, and I know that’s a terrible answer, but I don’t personally have another one I’m aware of right now,” Martin said. “These individuals don’t seem to have owned another apartment complex in the Metro Jackson area, despite owning a whole bunch nationwide.”
Back in April, a letter was left on the door of the leasing office advising residents to not make rental payments until a new property manager arrives. The previous property managers are Lynd Management Group, a company based in San Antonio, Texas.
The complex has been under increased scrutiny after Chapel Ridge Apartments lost its solid waste contract mid-March due to months of nonpayment. The removal of dumpsters led to a portion of the parking lot turning into a dumping site, an influx of rodents and gnats, and an investigation by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. Local leaders pitched in to help remedy the situation, and in May, Waste Management provided two dumpsters for the complex.
However, the problems persisted. In May, JXN Water released the names of 15 apartment complexes that owe more than $100,000 in unpaid water fees. Chapel Ridge was on the list. JXN Water spokesperson Aisha Carson said via email that they are “pursuing legal options to address these large-scale delinquencies across several properties.”
“While no shutoffs are imminent at this time, we are evaluating each case based on legal feasibility and the need to balance enforcement with tenant protections. Our focus is on transparency and accountability, not disruption—but we will act when needed to ensure the integrity of the system,” Carson said.
And earlier this week, Chapel Ridge Apartments was declared a public nuisance. Martin said this gives the city of Jackson “the authority to come in, mow the grass and board up any of the units where people aren’t living.”
Martin said the situation is complicated, because the complex is owned by Chapel Ridge Apartments LLC. The limited liability corporation is owned by CRBM Realty Inc. and Crown Capital Holdings LLC, which are ultimately owned by Moshe “Mark” Silber. In April, Silber was sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Earlier this month, both companies filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey.
Now, Martin said the main goal is to find someone who can manage the property.
“Somebody’s got to be able to collect rent from you,” Martin said. “They got to be able to pay the water. They got to be able to pay the garbage. They got to be able to pay for the lights to be on. They got to maintain the property, so that’s our goal is to put that in place.”
Chapel Ridge offers a rent scale based on household income. Those earning under 50% of the area median income — between $21,800 and $36,150 depending on household size — for example, pay $480 for a two-bedroom and $539 for a three-bedroom unit. Rent increases between $20 and $40 for those earning under 60% of the area median income.
Valarie Banks said that when she moved into Chapel Ridge nearly 13 years ago, it was a great community. The disabled mother and grandmother moved from West Jackson to the complex because it was neatly kept and quiet.
“It was beautiful. I saw a lot of kids out playing. There were people that were engaging you when you came out. They were eager to help,” Banks said. “ I hope that they could bring this place back to the way it once was.”
But after months of uncertainty, Banks is preparing to move. She said she’s not the only one.
“I have somewhere to go, but I’m just trying to get my money together so I can be able to handle the deposits and the bills that come after you move,” she said. “All of my doctors are around here close to me. In 12 years, I made this place home for me. … I’ve been stacking my rent, but it’s still not enough if I want to move this month.”
While she said she’s holding onto her rent payments for the time being, she realizes that many of her fellow residents may not be as lucky. Without someone to maintain the apartments, some residents are finding themselves without basic amenities.
“Some people are in dire straits, because they don’t have a stove or a fridge or the air conditioner,” she said. “Their stove went out, or the fridge went out, or they stole the air conditioner while you’re in the apartment.”
Banks isn’t the only one who is formulating a plan to leave. One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she’s been trying to save money to move, but she already has $354 wrapped up in a money order that she’s unable to pass off for her rent, due to the property manager’s recent departure.
“It really feels like an abandonment and just stressful to live where I’m living at right now. This just doesn’t happen. It just feels stressful. It doesn’t feel good at all,” she said.
She’s trying to remain optimistic, but as each day passes without someone to maintain the property, she’s losing hope.
“ I just hope that things get better some day, somehow, hopefully, because if not, more than likely I’m going to have to leave because I can only take so much,” she said. “I can’t continue to deal with this situation of hoping and wishing somebody comes, and they don’t.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Future uncertain for residents of abandoned south Jackson apartment complex appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article from *Mississippi Today* primarily focuses on the struggles of low-income residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments, emphasizing the human impact of property mismanagement, regulatory gaps, and systemic neglect. The piece maintains a factual tone, but it centers the voices of vulnerable tenants and local officials seeking accountability—hallmarks of a center-left perspective. While it does not overtly advocate for policy change, the narrative framing highlights social injustice and institutional failures, subtly aligning with progressive concerns about housing equity and corporate responsibility.
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