Every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth as safe, effective, and lifesaving. GLAAD is compiling their statements of support, counting at least 30 organizations in our recently updated list.
The medical community is speaking up to explain the care and defend their patients and profession as 19 states have proposed bans against this essential care. Legal challenges have successfully paused bans from going into effect in Florida and Indiana, and permanently blocked the ban passed in Arkansas.
Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld is the new President of the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest group of physicians. Ehrenfeld is the first out gay man to lead the AMA.
AMA President-Elect @DoctorJesseMD on anti-trans healthcare: "We simply will not stand for the government coming in to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.” https://t.co/6Mgceqxc4X
— AMA (@AmerMedicalAssn) May 12, 2023
“After three years of experiencing so much stress, with COVID, we’ve had this “twin-demic,” Ehrenfeld told Norah O’Donnell of CBS News. “A pandemic of disease, plus a pandemic of misinformation and bad information.”
The AMA’s newest president, Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, is the first openly gay leader of the nation’s largest group of physicians. @NorahODonnell sat down with him to discuss the issues facing doctors and patients today and why he’s pushing for “science-based medicine.” pic.twitter.com/HPePrBrATN
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) June 15, 2023
Ehrenfeld says regulators are acting as “backseat drivers” who are discarding science and “telling physicians how to practice medicine.” Ehrenfeld says this creates barriers to health care for all patients.
“In at least six states now, if I practice evidence-based care, I can go to jail. It’s frightening,” Ehrenfeld says. “Gender-affirming care, care for transgender patients, as well as abortion, reproductive health care… [criminalizing care] has been deeply damaging, not just to the health of patients seeking specific services, but to every American. We see patients who longer can find an OB/GYN because OB/GYN’s are leaving a state where they have criminalized certain aspects of care. That affects all (patients) in a state.”
Last week, the AMA passed a resolution drafted by the Endocrine Society and cosponsored by eight additional groups, “to protect access to evidence-based gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals.”
The AMA committed to opposing any criminal and legal penalties against patients seeking gender-affirming care, family members or guardians who support them in seeking medical care, and health care facilities and clinicians who provide gender-affirming care.
The resolution passed by the AMA stated the widespread misinformation and bans on care “do not reflect the research landscape. More than 2,000 scientific studies have examined aspects of gender-affirming care since 1975, including more than 260 studies cited in the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guideline.”
The more than 30 professional medical associations that support health care for transgender people and youth reflect the spectrum of healthcare professionals, from physicians to physicians’ assistants to nurses to nurse practitioners, from psychiatrists to social workers. The specialties include endocrinology to dermatology to reproductive care, and span all patient ages from pediatric to youth to college to geriatric. They represent the range of care most people, including transgender people, need throughout their life.
Their statements dispel misinformation and unequivocally affirm the widespread consensus of the medical and scientific communities about the efficacy and necessity of transgender healthcare.
“There is strong consensus among the most prominent medical organizations worldwide that evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender children and adolescents is medically necessary and appropriate. It can even be lifesaving,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement in August 2022.
The groups note their statements and the care they support is “based on decades of clinical experience and research and are not considered experimental,” writes the U.S. Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (USPATH).
“Gender affirming hormone therapy is a component of widely accepted medically necessary care for transgender and gender diverse people,” USPATH stated in March.
According to a 2022 Trevor Project survey, 86% of trans or nonbinary children reported the political debate surrounding trans issues negatively affected their mental health. Nearly half considered suicide. Concern about the vulnerability and isolation of trans youth comes through in the statements.
“Gender affirmation [is] developmentally appropriate, nonjudgmental, supportive care provided in a safe clinical space,” stated the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “Pediatric providers [are] often the first medical professionals to discover a child’s gender identity concerns, have a special role in caring for these patients who have a high risk of depression, anxiety and suicide.”
“The care model is not one-size-fits-all,” said Brittany Allen, M.D., FAAP, a member of the AAP Section on LGBTQ Executive Committee. “It recognizes the wide spectrum of normal, healthy gender identities.”
Multiple medical associations have issued statements to urge access to care, note already long-standing discrimination transgender people have faced in the healthcare system, and are demanding an end to harmful discrimination and baseless legislation criminalizing evidence-based care. Many note the importance of private health care decisions being made by patients, parents, and families, not politicians.
“Evidence-based medical care for transgender and gender diverse children is a complex issue that pediatricians are uniquely qualified to provide,” the Texas Pediatric Society wrote, in protest to statements from Texas’ governor and disgraced attorney general.
“This directive undermines the physician-patient-family relationship and will cause undue harm to children in Texas. TPS opposes the criminalization of evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adolescents. We urge the prioritization of the health and well-being of all youth, including transgender youth.”
“Medical decision-making for transgender children is the responsibility of parents acting in their child’s best interest to ensure their physical and mental health, safety and well-being,” writes the American Urological Association. “Consultation with medical professionals and education via medically safe (respected, peer-reviewed) resources must not be legislated or criminalized.”
“The legislative intent and medical claims behind these laws are not grounded in reputable science and conflict with the nurse’s obligation to promote, advocate, and protect the rights, health, and safety of patients,” wrote the American Nurses Association.
“The American College of Physicians opposes these restrictions on health care for transgender individuals, who already may face extreme barriers to accessing care, and strongly objects to any unnecessary government interference with any health care services,” the ACP wrote in April.
Some groups explain what’s involved in transgender health care, noting that misinformation is widespread, and that assumptions of intervention and irreversible decisions are incorrect.
“The decision of whether and when to start gender-affirming treatment, which does not necessarily lead to hormone therapy or surgery, is personal and involves careful consideration by each patient and their family,” wrote the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Medical treatment may include behavioral assessment, hormone therapy, and surgery,” writes the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. “These treatments are well established in the relevant established, international professional society guidelines including those from the Endocrine Society co-sponsored by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).”
The associations stress that transgender and gender diverse children must be treated with compassion and dignity, the same as as any child.
“Transgender and gender-diverse children and youth deserve to lead safe, healthy lives in environments that allow them to be their authentic selves,” the Federation of Pediatric Organizations writes.
“That can only happen if physicians are allowed to treat these children in the same manner, and with the same respect, that we expect them to treat every other child. Our mission to advance child health will succeed only if we work to improve health outcomes for all children.”
The AMA’s Ehrenfeld is a practicing anesthesiologist, a Navy veteran, and married father of two. His message for his own children and any child: “For anyone who is different out there, I hope that they see themselves in the example that I’ve set, that they can’t let anyone tell them they can’t just because of who they are.”
The 30+ professional medical associations that have issued statements supporting health care for transgender people and youth are:
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- American Academy of Dermatology
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Academy of Physician Assistants
- American Medical Association
- American Nurses Association
- American Association of Clinical Endocrinology
- American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry
- American College Health Association
- American College of Nurse-Midwives
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- American College of Physicians
- American Counseling Association
- American Heart Association
- American Medical Student Association
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Society of Plastic Surgeons
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine
- American Urological Association
- Endocrine Society
- Federation of Pediatric Organizations
- GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
- The Journal of the American Medical Association
- National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health
- National Association of Social Workers
- Pediatric Endocrine Society
- Texas Medical Association
- Texas Pediatric Society
- United States Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- World Medical Association
- World Professional Association for Transgender Health