Thread by @Bernard_Lane

"We petition the American Academy of Pediatrics to renounce its scientifically unsupported 'affirmative' policy for young people with gender dysphoria." Interesting petition given role of guidelines/policies in promoting gender hormone drugs & surgery. 1/
change.org/p/american-aca…

Gender clinic hormonal treatments for under-18s are based on "low quality" evidence, according to reviews of the medical literature, including the first systematic review by Chew et al 2018 published in the AAP's official journal. blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotligh…

In the absence of high quality evidence for gender medicine, treatment guidelines & position statements from medical associations take on more significance -- and they have their critics.

Psychologist @JamesCantorPhD fact-checked the AAP policy & argued its endorsement of the medicalised "affirmative" treatment model was contrary to the evidence on gender dysphoria (GD) in minors, which he said the AAP had misrepresented.

Cantor paper --
jamescantor.org/uploads/6/2/9/…

Cantor said: "In its policy statement, AAP told neither the truth nor the whole truth, committing sins both of commission & of omission, asserting claims easily falsified by anyone caring to do any fact-checking at all".

Cantor also said AAP had conflated sexual orientation with gender dysphoria & ignored the outcome of multiple studies suggesting the majority of children with gender dysphoria would grow out of it by puberty -- without medical intervention.

Cantor's paper raised serious questions about the AAP policy, so last year I sought comment from the academy, but it reportedly did "not want to engage in a back-and-forth debate" & felt its policy "speaks for itself". Officially, the academy wouldn't comment.

Psychologist Ken Zucker, an international authority on gender dysphoria & journal editor, also believed the AAP policy to be badly flawed, saying: “When I’m in a cynical mode I sometimes joke around & say, ‘if you don’t do research, you write guidelines’.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/drugs-f…

In October 2019 American paediatrician Julia Mason went public on the popular blog KevinMD with her concerns about medicalised gender change with children & the risk of regret.
kevinmd.com/blog/2019/10/a…

Mason, an adviser with the gender clinic watchdog group segm.org, told me back then she was "shocked & dismayed" by the AAP pro-affirmative policy & doubted 11-13 year-olds could grasp the significance of starting down this medical path.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/drugs-f…

So, what is the likely response to a petition calling on the AAP to revisit its pro-affirmative policy?