Pediatricians Condemn Major Medical Associations for Promoting Gender Transition in Kids

Doctors, nurses urge medical organizations to stop performing trans procedures on kids
100 medical professionals gathered in Washington to unveil the 'Doctors Protecting Children Declaration'

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter
Friday, June 07, 2024
studio-laska/iStock
studio-laska/iStock
A group of medical professionals have called on the medical establishment to abandon their support for sex-change procedures for minors suffering from gender dysphoria.

At a press conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the American College of Pediatricians unveiled the "Doctors Protecting Children Declaration."

The statement was signed by nearly 100 medical professionals, including physicians, nurses, psychotherapists and behavioral health clinicians, as well as “other health professionals, scientists, researchers, and public health and policy professionals.”

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The declaration was also endorsed by 18 medical organizations, nine advocacy groups and 13 “supporting leaders” who are not necessarily from a medical background.

It asked “the medical professional organizations of the United States” to “stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex.”

“Instead, these organizations should recommend comprehensive evaluations and therapies aimed at identifying and addressing underlying psychological co-morbidities and neurodiversity that often presuppose to and accompany gender dysphoria,” the signatories added.

“We also encourage the physicians who are members of these professional organizations to contact their leadership and urge them to adhere to the evidence-based research now available.”

The declaration called into question the effectiveness of body deforming and irreversible procedures pushed on children who are confused about their bodies, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgeries, such as castration.

Warning that “there are serious long-term risks associated with the use of social transition, puberty blockers, masculizing or feminizing hormones, and surgeries,” the declaration listed side effects of puberty blockers as “emotional lability, worsening psychological illness, low bone density, impaired memory, and the rare side-effect of pseudotumor cerebri (brain swelling).”

ACP Executive Director Dr. Jill Simons elaborated on her concerns about the U.S. medical establishment's current protocols on how to care for trans-identified minors.

“This declaration was authored by the American College of Pediatricians, but really it was developed from the expertise of hundreds of doctors, researchers and other healthcare workers and leaders who for years have been sounding the alarm on the harmful protocols that continue to be promoted by the medical organizations in the United States,” she said.

Simons specifically named the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry as organizations that promote such “harmful protocols.”

She pushed back on claims perpetuated by such organizations that “those of us who are concerned are a minority and that their protocols are consensus," adding that "they are not consensus and we are speaking in a loud unified voice: ‘Enough.’”

At the press conference, Dr. Andre Van Mol of The Christian Medical and Dental Associations cited statistics finding that “the natural course of gender dysphoria is desisted by adulthood, conservatively, in 85% of the cases unless it is affirmed.”

He added, “Gender dysphoria carries with it the overwhelming probability of underlying mental health issues, adverse family dynamics, adverse childhood experiences and autism spectrum disorder, that usually predate the gender dysphoria itself.”

Van Mol advised “watchful waiting coupled with mental health evaluation and counseling for both patient and family” in light of “the probability of both desistence and underlying mental health and other issues” as “the standard of care for minors with gender dysphoria.”

Concerns about the long-term impact of sex-change procedures for minors have prompted several states to ban such procedures on youth. States that have enacted prohibitions on some or all such procedures include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In February 2022, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the American Osteopathic Association and the American Psychiatric Association released a joint statement denouncing state-level efforts to, as they say, “criminalize gender-affirming care” for young people.

The trans-affirming groups added: "Our organizations have strongly opposed any legislation or regulation that interferes in the confidential relationship between a patient and their physician and the provision of evidence-based patient care for any patient. Patients, including youth, must be able to discuss gender-affirming care with their trusted physician to determine together what care is best for them. ... Our organizations will not stand for any efforts that discriminate against transgender and gender-diverse individuals and cause harm to their health and well-being."