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The American Medical Association (AMA) has affirmed its continued support for medical interventions for children who struggle with gender dysphoria, says a statement from its Board asserting its “policy on gender-affirming care is unchanged.”
“The AMA supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary per our policy,” the organization’s Board assured its members in a March newsletter.
Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), reacted to Lumen-News that the AMA “should state clearly that it is for chemical or surgical sterilization and mutilation of children, and interruption of natural maturation, with irreversible effects on intellectual development as well as bone, cardiac, and general health.”
“This is not ‘gender-affirming,’ but delusion-affirming, and denial of the patient’s genetic sex,” Orient asserted, adding:
The “treatments” do not improve health but create a need for lifelong medical and psychological care. It is impossible to change a person’s sex, and attempts to do so are contrary to natural law. The question does not concern evidence-based medicine, but the ethical imperative to do no harm – and to obtain truly informed consent, impossible in a minor or in a person suffering serious mental health issues.
Despite ever-increasing agreement within the United States and across the globe of the dangers of transition drugs and surgeries for children – as well as evidence that most children resolve gender confusion naturally as they mature – the AMA Board’s statement to its members seems to reflect a highly calculated response to media throughout the past several months.
The statement comes following one in early February by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which acknowledged that there exists “insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.”
Two days later, the AMA issued a statement of its own, asserting that it supports “evidence-based treatment, including gender-affirming care.”
“Currently, the evidence for gender-affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient for us to make a definitive statement,” the statement continued. “In the absence of clear evidence, surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood. Treatment decisions should be made between the physician, patient and family based on the best medical evidence and clinical judgment.”
In a comment to National Review on the ASPS statement, however, the AMA reportedly said that because “the evidence for gender-affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient for us to make a definitive statement . . . the AMA agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”
The AMA also told National Review it supports “’evidence-based treatment,’ including other types of gender-affirming care for minors.”
The statement that it “agrees with ASPS” was then picked up by other media, and the AMA Board said it felt compelled to correct that impression.
In its current newsletter to members, the AMA Board justified it was under pressure to compose its response to the ASPS statement at a time when the Trump Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had also issued its rule ending federal funding for institutions that provided sex-rejecting treatments for minors.
“Knowing the press would pick up the statement … the AMA Board chair convened the Executive Committee of the Board to discuss a possible response,” the Board continued in the newsletter. “That meeting was followed by a full Board meeting, given the level of interest and importance of the issue. The Board agreed on language to be used only if the AMA was contacted by the media, and for the AMA President to use in interviews. During our Board discussion, we were clear that we were not changing AMA policy.”
“The AMA did not issue a preemptive statement on these issues,” the Board continued to defend itself. “We responded only after being contacted by media outlets, using the language approved by the Board. While some media coverage characterized this as agreement with the ASPS statement, that phrasing did not come from the AMA. Unfortunately, how reporters frame their stories is beyond our control.”
The AMA Board apparently then went even further, demanding public corrections to its statement of agreement with ASPS to the New York Times, insisting “this was neither a policy change nor was it an endorsement of a position taken by another medical society”:
In recent days, AMA communications to the New York Times have requested a correction on their part to reflect the actual language the AMA used in response to their inquiry. Additionally, a letter to the editor has been submitted requesting a public correction—this was neither a policy change nor was it an endorsement of a position taken by another medical society. In addition, during Congressional testimony in mid-March, I had the opportunity to set the record straight stating to the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that there has been no change in AMA policy with respect to access to and provision of gender-affirming care. This will appear in the Congressional Record.
“As noted above, AMA policy on gender-affirming care is unchanged,” the Board emphasized. “Our recent response to questions about ASPS’s position statement was intended to preserve—not diminish—access to gender-affirming care, and to clarify and reinforce what our policy has long reflected and standards of care. The AMA supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary per our policy.”
Orient says AMA is simply “affirming the lucrative transgender industry.”
“This is consistent with other positions it takes, which support corporate medicine instead of patients’ need for accessible, quality, affordable care,” she told Lumen-News. “Note the absence of support for repealing the ban on physician-owned hospitals, repealing certificate-of-need (anti-competition) laws, and demanding site-neutral payment.”
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