Trans rights activists assert that all of the major medical associations support what’s euphemistically labeled “Gender Affirming Care.” True, but these associations are ideologically corrupt, and none more so than the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) gender care policy was written by one man, Dr. Jason Rafferty. It reflects his ideological beliefs about gender identities, not medical science. This radical policy does away with the scientifically supported approach of watching waiting where children get counseling instead of chemicals, according to a lawsuit by a detransitioner against the AAP and Rafferty. Instead, the policy brushes aside research to establish an affirmative care model that calls for the immediate embrace of a child’s gender identity and advocates for social transitioning, puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries.
Related: Detransitioner Sues American Academy of Pediatrics for Fraud and Conspiracy
The policy labels “watchful waiting” therapies that help children become comfortable with their own bodies “unsuccessful and deleterious” and “outdated;” however, the sources the policies cited don’t support that claim, as noted in a fact check by Dr. James Cantor, then the director of The Toronto Sexual Center. “These documents simply did not say what AAP claimed they did. In fact, the references that AAP cited as the basis of their policy instead outright contradicted that policy, repeatedly endorsing watchful waiting.”
The AAP’s claims about the alleged harms of “watchful waiting” have been repeated by Dartmouth Health Endocrinologist Francis Lim-Liberty, who accused clinicians who don’t immediately affirm children’s gender identity of “transphobia.”
The AAP’s unsubstantiated claims are the basis for activists and the medical industry’s insistence that children won’t outgrow their dysphoria and learn to be comfortable with their own bodies. “A person’s gender identity is not something that can be changed,” GLAD lobbyist Chris Erchull testified at the State House. “It is fixed at a very young age. That’s what the experts tell us.”
The AAP’s policy doesn’t recognize that depression, trauma, and autism might be at the root of a child’s gender confusion. It says that “if a mental health issue exists, it most often stems from stigma and negative experiences rather than being intrinsic to the child.”
The AAP has shut down debate about its controversial policy. They failed to respond to Dr. Cantor’s fact check by either reviewing their policy or writing a rebuttal. They also turned down two panels to discuss the dangers of the affirmative care model at their annual conference proposed by Finland’s leading gender expert, Riitakerttu Kaltiala. She said that the AAP is “actively hostile to the message my colleagues and I are urging.”
In 2021, the AAP’s directors refused a popular proposal to discuss the risks and benefits of the gender-affirmative care model at their annual conference. They also refused to allow the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine’s (SEGM) request to have an exhibition.
In August, the AAP announced that it would conduct a systematic review of the research, but AAP CEO Mark Del Monte announced its foregone conclusion: “He emphasizes that policy authors and AAP leadership are confident the principles presented in the original policy . . . remain in the best interest of children.”
The extent of the AAP’s ideological corruption was on full display at their 2023 annual conference. Child-transing activist Ilana Sherer held a workshop on gender-affirming care where she encouraged her fellow pediatricians to discuss gender identity with prepubescent children. She also said that pediatricians should teach children to call vaginas an “innie” or “front hole” and call a penis “junk” or “strapless.” At a 2018 conference, Sherer recommended that pediatricians “rubber-stamp” minors’ requests for hormones.
We need to stop putting so much faith in physicians, according to detransitioner Katie Anderson:
We got here by treating doctors like high priests and the medical industry like a church. We gave doctors the right to try to carve people up to try to make them look like the opposite sex, but we’re not even honest enough to say that.