Texas Man Arrested for Threatening Boston Doctor Who Provides Trans Care
(CNN) -- The FBI on Friday arrested a Texas man who allegedly called and threatened a Boston doctor who was providing care to transgender individuals, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a news release.Matthew Jordan Lindner, 38, has been charged with one count of transmitting interstate threats and is scheduled to appear at a federal court in Boston at "a later date," the release said.
He is being held without bail, The New York Times reported.CNN has reached out to Lindner's attorney for comment.According to a criminal complaint, false information began spreading on social media in August alleging that health care providers at the Boston Children's Hospital were performing hysterectomies and gender affirmation surgeries on patients younger than 18.
Hospital personnel have said that was not true and that hysterectomies and gender affirming surgeries were not performed on patients under 18, according to the complaint.The hospital, which calls itself "home to the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States," said in August that it faced numerous violent threats for offering that kind of care, adding its staff and clinicians have been harassed by phone, email and social media.
The threats picked up after the misinformation started spreading, CNN has previously reported.On August 31, the Fenway Institute's National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center, also in Boston, received a voicemail from a person who threatened to injure and kill a physician at the center who specializes in sexual health issues and is an "advocate for gender-affirming care," according to the complaint.In the voicemail, the caller threatened that there was a "group of people on their way to.
