Whether a healthcare professional, legislator, mother, father or concerned citizen, it should be our highest priority to protect children. Several healthcare professionals, healthcare organizations and others are doing just that.

Pediatricians of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) alongside colleagues representing the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Catholic Medical Association (CMA), the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), Child & Parental Rights Campaign (CPRC), and others signed the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration calling on prominent American medical institutions to suspend providing gender transition procedures and treatments on children and adolescents who express discomfort with their biological sex. Explicitly, the Declaration calls on “the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry to adhere to evidence-based research and utilize comprehensive evaluations and therapies for youth with gender dysphoria.” The Declaration highlights research, systematic reviews and multiple studies undertaken that demonstrates that there is “little to no benefit from any and all ‘gender-affirming’ interventions for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. (Declaration co-signer and CMDA Sexual & Gender Identity Task Force Co-Chair, Dr. Andre Van Mol, has written an excellent, distilled blog post on the final Cass Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People that was released in April 2024 that I highly recommend for your reading). Social ‘affirmation,’ puberty blockers, masculinizing or feminizing hormones, and surgeries, individually or in combination, do not appear to improve long-term health of the adolescents, including suicide risk,” per the American College of Pediatricians Position Statement on Mental Health in Adolescents with Incongruence of Gender Identity and Biological Sex (February 2024).

The Declaration also states that “Medical decision making should not be based upon an individual’s thoughts and feelings, as in “gender identity” or “gender expression”, but rather should be based upon an individual’s biological sex. Medical decision making should respect biological reality and the dignity of the person by compassionately addressing the whole person.”

A press conference announcing the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration was held on June 6, 2024, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. where representatives with the American College of Pediatricians, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Association of Christian Counselors, Catholic Medical Association, Christ Medicus Foundation, Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and Honey Lake Clinic spoke in support of the Declaration as co-signors. The press conference itself has received more than 45 million views on traditional and social media platforms with many expressing support and encouraging others to sign the Declaration. To date, co-signors from more than 40 countries have signed the Declaration. The press conference can be viewed on the Doctors Protecting Children website where you can also sign the Declaration.

The American College of Pediatricians has provided resources through its project Biological Integrity to help parents, teens, physicians, schools and policymakers on the topic of gender dysphoria.

As the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, we support efforts to protect our children from potentially life-altering decisions they do not have the maturity or capacity to make in other areas of law and of life. When our children are struggling, they need compassionate care—not harmful treatments and surgeries. Please read the CMDA Position Statement on Transgender Identification for more information.