ATLANTA (LifeSiteNews) — The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), an organization of healthcare professionals dedicated to protecting children’s health, launched a new initiative Wednesday to help combat the use of experimental drugs and “treatments” for gender-confused minors.
As part of the new Biological Integrity Initiative, ACPeds launched a new website with resources for parents, teens, doctors, schools and lawmakers. Resources on the website include videos, a map showing which states have what legislation regarding puberty blockers and gender “care,” as well as ways to contact doctors and therapists for minors struggling with gender dysphoria, according to a press release from the organization.
The press release also said that ACPeds will also “increase their involvement testifying and serving as amici curiae,” as well as by strengthening coalitions with partner organizations, continuing to speak publicly about gender dysphoria, and by publishing more “research and position statements.” ACPeds will also help to train healthcare professionals interested in speaking publicly and testify about gender dysphoria.
Dr. Jill Simons, executive director for ACPeds, said in a statement that the organization has been receiving “increasing demands to provide clarity and support” on the issue of gender dysphoria. “[I]t is our hope that the Biological Integrity Initiative will be a valuable, practical resource for everyone involved,” she said.
“The term biological integrity denotes living in consistency with one’s natural, biological self — the integrated whole of body and mind,” Simons continued. “Children and adolescents should be loved, and taught to love themselves, as wholly male or female. Children are always born in the right body.”
ACPeds president Dr. Michael Artigues noted in his statement on the Initiative’s launch that the “massive push we are seeing for children to become the targets of experimental, life-altering drugs and surgeries is ideological in nature, directly opposed to biological reality, antithetical to good medical practice, and deeply disturbing to doctors who have devoted their lives to ethical, compassionate care for their most vulnerable patients – children.”
Speaking to the Daily Signal, Simons said that ACPeds is “trying to raise awareness” on the issue of gender “treatments,” with the hopes that the organization’s actions through the new Initiative will “[get] the word out there.” “As much as we can get the word out there about this and the facts and the science, that’s what’s needed.”
As LifeSiteNews has reported, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality. Further, studies indicate that over 80% of children suffering from gender dysphoria will outgrow it on their own by late adolescence without surgical or pharmaceutical interventions.
Even so, transgender identification among children has spiked in recent years and the rates of surgical mutilation for minors have risen astronomically. The phenomenon has coincided with young children across the country being actively encouraged in their classrooms to adopt “transgender,” “gender-fluid,” or “non-binary” identities.
The promotion of gender ideology for children has triggered backlash from parents and conservative lawmakers, who have worked at the grassroots and legislative levels to craft legislation to ban destructive drugs and surgeries for minors, require schools to notify families of a child’s gender confusion, pull sexually explicit and pro-LGBT curricula and materials from classrooms and school libraries, protect girls’ sports and spaces, and ban sexualized performances targeting children.
Over 20 states have enacted legislation banning or limiting minors’ access to such experimental drugs and “treatments.”
ACPeds’ launch of the Biological Integrity Initiative is contrasted with the support of gender “treatments” for minors shown by other medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In August, ACPeds responded to the AAP’s decision to reiterate its support of gender “treatments” for minors, saying that it was “disappointed” by the decision, though added it was “encouraged” by the AAP’s call for a systematic review of data on the impact of such “treatments.”