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The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) announced before the Thanksgiving holiday that its members “applaud and endorse” the peer-reviewed report discrediting child sex-rejection medical interventions that was recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“It is refreshing that the dangers of social and medical transitioning of children with gender dysphoria are finally being recognized by those in our country at the national level,” said ACPeds President Dr. Michael Artigues in a statement. “These treatments and procedures are based on poor-quality studies and assumptions that put children at risk. In this politically charged environment, where trust in the medical community is at an all-time low, we at the American College of Pediatricians hope this strong statement by HHS will send a clear message for all those involved to take a much closer look at the evidence and lack thereof in this field of pediatric medicine.”
Released on November 19, HHS’s report found that “the harms from sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked.”
The HHS document’s foreword notes that “the use of pharmacological and surgical interventions as treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria has been called ‘medically necessary’ and even ‘lifesaving.’”
The Biden administration especially promoted so-called “gender-affirming care” among children and adolescents, with former Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel (born Richard) Levine using those same terms to tout its necessity.
Nevertheless, the current HHS report’s executive summary affirms that “[t]he risks of pediatric medical transition include infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said that both the “American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children.”
“They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” Kennedy added. “That is not medicine — it’s malpractice.”
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, past president of ACPeds, echoed the secretary’s sentiments, contrasting his organization’s longstanding recognition of “the serious, lifelong risks” associated with “gender-affirming care” with that of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which, in May, condemned the Trump administration’s assertion of “serious concerns” about the model of treating young children and teens with gender dysphoria with experimental hormone drugs and surgeries.
“From the beginning, the American College of Pediatricians has opposed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ stance on the promotion of harmful interventions and has consistently advocated for a safe, evidence-based approach to treating individuals with sex-identity disorder,” Van Meter asserted. “We have long recognized the serious, lifelong risks associated with chemical interventions, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, as well as the unethical and dangerous nature of surgical procedures performed on minors.”
Meanwhile, multiple organizations, including the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), the Catholic Medical Association, Genspect, the National Association of Catholic Nurses, and Partners for Ethical Care, are calling for support of a proposal to assist “detransitioners” – those who have undergone sex-rejecting social, hormone, or surgical interventions, but have later come to regret them and attempted their discontinuation.
The organizations have submitted public comments to HHS’ ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee to urge the addition of medical diagnostic codes for detransitioners.
In their public comment, EPPC scholars Mary Rice Hasson, Eric Kniffin, and Rachel N. Morrison emphasized the absence of protocols and medical terminology to direct physicians to assist detransitioners, at least some of whom are suffering irreversible conditions as a result of cross-sex hormones and surgical procedures.
“There is no recognized label for their condition or its characteristic injuries, symptoms, and outcomes,” the scholars wrote. “Without appropriate diagnostic codes to indicate the etiology of their condition, and its current manifestation, these patients—and their injuries—are invisible to the healthcare system. They are seeking to recover their health and to alleviate suffering that is a direct result of a zealous, ideology-driven experiment, unsupported by reliable medical evidence.”
“The Committee and HHS should, as a matter of justice, do what it can to help provide the structural framework, including appropriate medical codes, that will permit the healthcare system to respond effectively and systematically to their needs,” the EPPC scholars urge.
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