Bogus Doctors Group Pushed By Elon Musk, Fox News Against Trans Care

Headlines on conservative news sites stated that the "American College of Pediatricians" opposes trans care. Their name is intentionally misleading; they are not the American Academy of Pediatrics.

On Friday, numerous conservative accounts and news sources promoted headlines that the "American College of Pediatricians" had issued a statement against transgender care. A video accompanied the announcement featuring Dr. Jill Simons, who, wearing a white lab coat, states that there must be an end to "social affirmation, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones" for transgender youth. Despite the official-looking attire and name, the organization's name serves to mislead observers into thinking they are the much larger American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents tens of thousands of pediatricians. In reality, the ACP is a hyper-conservative Christian group of doctors created in 2002 to oppose gay parenting.

In the announcement released on Friday, Simons called for an end to social transition and gender-affirming care for transgender youth. One video, which went viral, begins with a statement that the organization has released a "declaration" authored by the American College of Pediatricians, along with "hundreds of doctors and healthcare workers," opposing transgender care. It references the highly-politicized Cass Review from the United Kingdom, whose author controversially blames pornography for being transgender, as well as the Climategate-style leak of the “WPATH Files” to support the statement.

The video, which was viewed over 51 million times on Twitter, cuts off just before the next speaker is introduced: Dr. Andre Van Mol, who represents the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. Van Mol serves on the board of the Bethel Church of Redding, which made headlines in 2019 for attempting to pray a dead child back to life. He is followed by representatives from several other Christian medical organizations that also support banning transgender care. The website promoted at the event lists signatories to the statement, including the Catholic Medical Association, Genspect, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, the Family Research Council, and the Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes intelligent design over evolution in schools.

The American College of Pediatricians has been hugely influential in the promotion of anti-trans policy in the United States, relying in part to its misleading name. Members of the organization testify in state houses and courtrooms across the United States, misleading legislators into thinking they are the much larger American Academy of Pediatrics, the professional society that represents 67,000 pediatricians in the United States.

In 2023, the organization inadvertently left a Google Drive public, leading to the leak of a massive trove of files showing their extremist roots. According to these documents, the group received significant media training from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing organization that has played a large role in the passage and defense of anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the United States. It also received free video production from Family Watch International, a group of Christian fundamentalists opposing homosexuality, birth control, abortion, and sex education. The American College of Pediatricians itself has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2012, when the group’s leader stated that “homosexuality poses a danger to children” and that the group was “essentially a Judeo-Christian values organization.”

Despite its clear Christian fundamentalist opposition to LGBTQ+ people, the organization’s name has been utilized to help create misleading headlines about the state of medical acceptance of transgender care in the United States. On Friday, conservative influencer Robby Starbuck posted a video of Simons speaking with a statement that “The American College of Pediatricians” had called for groups to “IMMEDIATELY stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex." That video was retweeted by Elon Musk, who quote tweeted it with a reply of “wow.” Michael Shermer of “Skeptic Magazine” also promoted the misleading video. Following millions of views on twitter, Fox News reported on the video, stating that “American College of Pediatricians issues fiery statement condemning child gender transition” and that “The American College of Pediatricians and other groups argue evidence does not support transgender medical procedures.” The Fox News article makes no mention of the nature of the ACP and its Christian conservative roots.

The article and tweets successfully fooled many people. Replies to the Fox News story, for instance, feature top-rated comments such as “I'm a retired physician, pathologist, who has been wondering why this group and others have taken so long to publish a position paper along these lines,” “I never thought I would see anything like this in my entire life,” and “Finally…….a medical group has the courage to speak out against this evil practice!”

Despite the widespread misinformation, every major medical organization in the United States supports gender-affirming care. In February, the American Psychological Association, the largest psychological association in the world, released a policy resolution stating that gender-affirming care is medically necessary and saves lives. The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that transgender youth have access to gender-affirming care tailored to their unique needs. The Advocates for Trans Equality maintains a list of over 30 of the largest U.S.-based medical organizations that support transgender care, including the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Public Health Association, and the American Medical Association.