The American Medical Association is setting the record straight on trans people’s health care—expressing its full support of keeping decisions in the hands of doctors, patients, and their families.
I am sending a copy of your piece to the Tennessee State Senators in Knox County who are in support of a horrendous bill the legislature is hearing in committee. Tennessee House members, too. These people have no business in office. I am so angry.
Hi Erin, a teacher friend of mine at a public middle school reported he heard from guidance counselors in his school and the high school reported kids on puberty blockers and hormones had become more suicidal after accessing GAC than before they were taking GAC medication. My friend was interested enough to go to pub.med.gov website to read published papers on effect of puberty blockers and hormones on kids. He reported that these studies backed what his guidance counselors said. I question this conclusion, but I have not had time to read these studies. Do you or someone have insight into what the government is putting on this website and are they only putting studies that support banning GAC for youth? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Did your friend tell you what searches they did on PubMed or provide you any specific articles? You can find negative research for many if not most treatments on PubMed or any other database. One could make an argument to ban aspirin using research from PubMed if they wanted. It causes deaths, after all. People do the same thing for vaccines and birth control.
I work in healthcare authorizations dealing with insurances, and these tactics are similar to what insurance companies do when they distort research to support their denials of treatments that are FDA-approved, efficacious, and should be covered. They may be able to point to something somewhere that supports their positions, but it’s almost always dishonest in some way.
Like in the examples above with aspirin, vaccines, and birth control, the consensus of experts is overwhelmingly in support of the benefits of GAC at all ages. Nobody has ever denied negative outcomes or risks, but risk vs benefit is a choice every patient and provider makes for every treatment. Like any other treatment, choices about GAC should be left in the hands of patients, providers, and families, rather than taken away by ideological quacks misusing research, medicine, and the government to attack people they don’t like.
In addition to what you find in your own searching, maybe you could share this 2024 PubMed article and quote from it with your friend and any other GAC skeptics https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11935454/
”Bans on GAC undermine evidenced-based practices and are resulting in negative health effects for trans communities and youth.”
You can make an argument for or against most treatments using research available in databases like PubMed, but if you assess the entirety of the available literature, you’ll find that the majority of experts support GAC at all ages.
As a physician I'd like to add that while I support pubmed being out there, it's not a tool for the general public to use, per se. While it allows someone to use a few search terms and pull up an article or two, that's very different from having the medical knowledge to contextualize what they might be reading.
The scientific literature is written like any other compressed professional communication. There are terms that have meaning to people in the profession (and even within a specialty) that might not seem to mean the same thing at all to lay people (or even people from a different medical specialty).
A classic example is "the results were not statistically significant." A lot of lay people read that as "the results were unimportant." That's not what it means at all. It means that according to statistical (probabilistic) calculations, the result does not meet a threshold (generally 95% probability) that the results are not due to chance alone.
But to understand that you have to have some knowledge in statistics and probability to recognize and make sense of the jargon.
I find it not infrequent that lay people pull stuff out of PubMed and they have no idea what they are reading, or they go and look for something they think supports their point, but they don't know the larger body of literature well enough to determine if the bulk of the research supports their contention or is an outlier.
Any government-backed source of information about transgender healthcare has to be considered compromised right now, because of the current administration's overt animus against trans people, and trans youth in particular. I would take anything published on any government site since January 2025 with a large grain of salt, especially if it claims to support any restriction of 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦.
That said... here are a couple of published studies available on pub.med.gov that directly contradict your friend's assertion (both have been reported on in this newsletter in the past). Whether they're still there because they've been overlooked, or because the people running things know that their base doesn't care for reading and thus can't be bothered with an in-depth purge of absolutely everything, I couldn't say:
So, there's one study that draws a causal link between gender-affirming care and lower rates of depression and suicidality in trans youth, and another which draws a similar link between having a supportive family and lower rates of depression and suicidality.
Misleading or confusing titles are a problem, as well. Here's a study with a title that, if one were just skimming a list of search results, could easily lead them to believe it supports restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth, when if anything it supports the opposite position:
I would press your friend for details about the studies he claims to have read- and I would be 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 concerned about the guidance counselors he says he consulted. Any trans kid directed to them for support could be in serious danger.
Particularly with respect to puberty blockers, ask them to produce any named "side effect" of blockers which are not in fact the anticipated excepted result of the drug AND also occur in the population taking them for gender dysphoria above baseline compared to a like and population not taking the drugs AND persist after puberty of either flavor has concluded.
Oh, don't get me started on medications and side effects. (oops, you did).
In the early (pre-approval) clinical trials, small cohorts of patients are given drugs and either matched with placebo controls (or an existing effective drug that the new one is being compared against). In those trials, effects reported in the experimental but not the control group are more likely to be attributed to the actual drug.
However, POST APPROVAL, the system works completely differently.
Once a drug is approved by FDA, anyone can report side effects for any reason that they think are attributable to the drug. That sounds great in theory, but in practice what it means is those results need to be taken with a much larger grain of salt, because it's a compilation of subjective experiences and not a controlled scientific study.
For example, consider a new antibiotic. It might generate a ton of reports from people who take it and get diarrhea. The mechanism is plausible, we know it happens with other antibiotics, and so when it's reported (and especially if it's reported quite frequently and in a temporal association with a drug that is administered in a short term) we tend to believe the association.
But suppose one person writes in "it turned my pubic hair blue and my eyebrows fell out." There's no way to verify easily if the drug caused it or not, because it's a person reporting an experience they attribute to the drug, but they are not part of a controlled study.
So then you see things like "rare side effects reported such as pubic hair turning blue and eyebrows falling out," often it's just a stray report that may or may not have anything to do with the drug.
I strongly support the American Medical Association’s evidence-based position supporting access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The AMA’s guidance reflects the medical consensus that care for transgender patients must be grounded in scientific evidence, ethical clinical practice, and individualized decision-making between physicians, patients, and families.
I do not support the recent statement issued by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which departs from the broader consensus of major medical organizations and risks amplifying misinformation about established standards of care.
Statements that undermine evidence-based medicine contribute to stigma and create unnecessary barriers for patients seeking medically appropriate treatment.
I strongly oppose any Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rule or policy that would restrict or terminate federal funding to medical institutions providing gender-affirming care.
Efforts to condition funding on the denial of lawful, medically indicated treatment represent political interference in clinical decision-making and threaten the independence of physicians and healthcare institutions.
Transgender youth deserve compassionate, medically appropriate care delivered by qualified professionals without fear of political retaliation. I stand with the American Medical Association and the broader medical community in supporting access to gender-affirming care and in opposing policies that undermine patient care, physician judgment, and medical integrity.
Erin - can some brilliant mind challenge anti states and fed by pushing to ban any medical/chemical involvement in changing a body “as presented at birth” including viagra, cosmetic surgery, corrective surgery, braces, hair removal/addition, circumcision, deodorant, stents, heart pace makers, fingernail enhancements. I’m very serious.
Because you will die from a perf'd bowel, an unresected cancer, or a ruptured appendix. There's nothing wrong with cosmetic surgery, but the majority of surgeries involve a genuine medical need.
One could (and I will) also argue that gender dysphoria is as real and pressing a medical need as any. It doesn't mean surgery is the right or the only way to address it, but that's for doctors and patients to decide - not some popularity vote by the general public.
It is so reassuring that the American Medical Association (AMA), that key reputable. representative of the (no longer united) States of America Physician's group has "come out" strongly in their support for the established, scientifically (that's fact based) medical protocols on working with the transgender community.
The AMA join the strong medical guidelines for interactions with this diverse community in place in more progressive countries - ie those supporting diversity in all there forms. Including the perspectives given by the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Australia Medical Association (AuMA) to name but two.
As any ER doc knows that's called a plastic surgeon on a night or weekend when there's a trauma in the house, we usually hear "Oh, just sew it up and we'll see how it turns out and if it needs a revision in a few months they can come see me for a revision."
They're never first to the situation. No matter what the situation.
Relieved to see that the AMA is holding their ground- for now. I don't much like that it took media pressure to get them to clarify the matter, though.
When a High School and earlier biology student I learned about the moment of conception, where Male or Female was determined randomly by which sperm "won the race." It was the 1960's. Nobody wanted to talk about the ramifications of this randomness. I thought about how some students didn't seem comfortable in their skin. I thought "she seems boyish," or "he seems girlish." Nobody wanted to talk about the broad spectrum of characteristics which cause people to seem "different." Here we are talking about it 60 years later, finally. At least it's out in the open, and some people are getting the help they need. The "head in the sand" status of the Republican Party is totally inappropriate, passing laws that make no sense, in an attempt to "make it all go away."
Email the MSSNY and tell them to vote against Glasberg’s resolution that falsely cites the AMA as agreeing with the ASPS, among other misinformation:
Main house of delegates email - hod@mssny.org
General contact - MemberResources@MSSNY.org
HQ on legislative affairs - mssny@mssny.org
Valerie Cammiso, VP of Meeting Planning (directly oversees HOD logistics) - vcammiso@mssny.org
Julie Vecchione, VP of Communications - jvecchione@mssny.org
I am sending a copy of your piece to the Tennessee State Senators in Knox County who are in support of a horrendous bill the legislature is hearing in committee. Tennessee House members, too. These people have no business in office. I am so angry.
Hi Erin, a teacher friend of mine at a public middle school reported he heard from guidance counselors in his school and the high school reported kids on puberty blockers and hormones had become more suicidal after accessing GAC than before they were taking GAC medication. My friend was interested enough to go to pub.med.gov website to read published papers on effect of puberty blockers and hormones on kids. He reported that these studies backed what his guidance counselors said. I question this conclusion, but I have not had time to read these studies. Do you or someone have insight into what the government is putting on this website and are they only putting studies that support banning GAC for youth? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Lynn
Did your friend tell you what searches they did on PubMed or provide you any specific articles? You can find negative research for many if not most treatments on PubMed or any other database. One could make an argument to ban aspirin using research from PubMed if they wanted. It causes deaths, after all. People do the same thing for vaccines and birth control.
I work in healthcare authorizations dealing with insurances, and these tactics are similar to what insurance companies do when they distort research to support their denials of treatments that are FDA-approved, efficacious, and should be covered. They may be able to point to something somewhere that supports their positions, but it’s almost always dishonest in some way.
Like in the examples above with aspirin, vaccines, and birth control, the consensus of experts is overwhelmingly in support of the benefits of GAC at all ages. Nobody has ever denied negative outcomes or risks, but risk vs benefit is a choice every patient and provider makes for every treatment. Like any other treatment, choices about GAC should be left in the hands of patients, providers, and families, rather than taken away by ideological quacks misusing research, medicine, and the government to attack people they don’t like.
In addition to what you find in your own searching, maybe you could share this 2024 PubMed article and quote from it with your friend and any other GAC skeptics https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11935454/
”Bans on GAC undermine evidenced-based practices and are resulting in negative health effects for trans communities and youth.”
You can make an argument for or against most treatments using research available in databases like PubMed, but if you assess the entirety of the available literature, you’ll find that the majority of experts support GAC at all ages.
Thank you Devin. I found your reference article very helpful. Lynn
As a physician I'd like to add that while I support pubmed being out there, it's not a tool for the general public to use, per se. While it allows someone to use a few search terms and pull up an article or two, that's very different from having the medical knowledge to contextualize what they might be reading.
The scientific literature is written like any other compressed professional communication. There are terms that have meaning to people in the profession (and even within a specialty) that might not seem to mean the same thing at all to lay people (or even people from a different medical specialty).
A classic example is "the results were not statistically significant." A lot of lay people read that as "the results were unimportant." That's not what it means at all. It means that according to statistical (probabilistic) calculations, the result does not meet a threshold (generally 95% probability) that the results are not due to chance alone.
But to understand that you have to have some knowledge in statistics and probability to recognize and make sense of the jargon.
I find it not infrequent that lay people pull stuff out of PubMed and they have no idea what they are reading, or they go and look for something they think supports their point, but they don't know the larger body of literature well enough to determine if the bulk of the research supports their contention or is an outlier.
Any government-backed source of information about transgender healthcare has to be considered compromised right now, because of the current administration's overt animus against trans people, and trans youth in particular. I would take anything published on any government site since January 2025 with a large grain of salt, especially if it claims to support any restriction of 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦.
That said... here are a couple of published studies available on pub.med.gov that directly contradict your friend's assertion (both have been reported on in this newsletter in the past). Whether they're still there because they've been overlooked, or because the people running things know that their base doesn't care for reading and thus can't be bothered with an in-depth purge of absolutely everything, I couldn't say:
𝗠𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝗔𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35212746/ - "𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳-𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 12 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘢𝘥𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳-𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭-𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘕𝘉 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘴 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘥, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦."
𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗜𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7578185/ - "𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘠𝘛𝘞 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵-𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘠𝘛𝘞 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘠𝘛𝘞 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯."
So, there's one study that draws a causal link between gender-affirming care and lower rates of depression and suicidality in trans youth, and another which draws a similar link between having a supportive family and lower rates of depression and suicidality.
Misleading or confusing titles are a problem, as well. Here's a study with a title that, if one were just skimming a list of search results, could easily lead them to believe it supports restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth, when if anything it supports the opposite position:
𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝗔𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗽𝘆 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗔𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 - https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/fulltext - "𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨: 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘎𝘈𝘏𝘛 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩."
I would press your friend for details about the studies he claims to have read- and I would be 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 concerned about the guidance counselors he says he consulted. Any trans kid directed to them for support could be in serious danger.
Particularly with respect to puberty blockers, ask them to produce any named "side effect" of blockers which are not in fact the anticipated excepted result of the drug AND also occur in the population taking them for gender dysphoria above baseline compared to a like and population not taking the drugs AND persist after puberty of either flavor has concluded.
I suspect they will never find any.
Oh, don't get me started on medications and side effects. (oops, you did).
In the early (pre-approval) clinical trials, small cohorts of patients are given drugs and either matched with placebo controls (or an existing effective drug that the new one is being compared against). In those trials, effects reported in the experimental but not the control group are more likely to be attributed to the actual drug.
However, POST APPROVAL, the system works completely differently.
Once a drug is approved by FDA, anyone can report side effects for any reason that they think are attributable to the drug. That sounds great in theory, but in practice what it means is those results need to be taken with a much larger grain of salt, because it's a compilation of subjective experiences and not a controlled scientific study.
For example, consider a new antibiotic. It might generate a ton of reports from people who take it and get diarrhea. The mechanism is plausible, we know it happens with other antibiotics, and so when it's reported (and especially if it's reported quite frequently and in a temporal association with a drug that is administered in a short term) we tend to believe the association.
But suppose one person writes in "it turned my pubic hair blue and my eyebrows fell out." There's no way to verify easily if the drug caused it or not, because it's a person reporting an experience they attribute to the drug, but they are not part of a controlled study.
So then you see things like "rare side effects reported such as pubic hair turning blue and eyebrows falling out," often it's just a stray report that may or may not have anything to do with the drug.
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who to trust on the question of gender affirming care - the AMA or the ASPS?
It's not a hard choice, America.
I strongly support the American Medical Association’s evidence-based position supporting access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The AMA’s guidance reflects the medical consensus that care for transgender patients must be grounded in scientific evidence, ethical clinical practice, and individualized decision-making between physicians, patients, and families.
I do not support the recent statement issued by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which departs from the broader consensus of major medical organizations and risks amplifying misinformation about established standards of care.
Statements that undermine evidence-based medicine contribute to stigma and create unnecessary barriers for patients seeking medically appropriate treatment.
I strongly oppose any Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rule or policy that would restrict or terminate federal funding to medical institutions providing gender-affirming care.
Efforts to condition funding on the denial of lawful, medically indicated treatment represent political interference in clinical decision-making and threaten the independence of physicians and healthcare institutions.
Transgender youth deserve compassionate, medically appropriate care delivered by qualified professionals without fear of political retaliation. I stand with the American Medical Association and the broader medical community in supporting access to gender-affirming care and in opposing policies that undermine patient care, physician judgment, and medical integrity.
I wonder if the ASPS will have a position statement on MAGA face, too? 🫢
They make a lot of money creating it.
Thank you AMA.
Thank you for the good news!
Erin - can some brilliant mind challenge anti states and fed by pushing to ban any medical/chemical involvement in changing a body “as presented at birth” including viagra, cosmetic surgery, corrective surgery, braces, hair removal/addition, circumcision, deodorant, stents, heart pace makers, fingernail enhancements. I’m very serious.
Because you will die from a perf'd bowel, an unresected cancer, or a ruptured appendix. There's nothing wrong with cosmetic surgery, but the majority of surgeries involve a genuine medical need.
One could (and I will) also argue that gender dysphoria is as real and pressing a medical need as any. It doesn't mean surgery is the right or the only way to address it, but that's for doctors and patients to decide - not some popularity vote by the general public.
It is so reassuring that the American Medical Association (AMA), that key reputable. representative of the (no longer united) States of America Physician's group has "come out" strongly in their support for the established, scientifically (that's fact based) medical protocols on working with the transgender community.
The AMA join the strong medical guidelines for interactions with this diverse community in place in more progressive countries - ie those supporting diversity in all there forms. Including the perspectives given by the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Australia Medical Association (AuMA) to name but two.
As any ER doc knows that's called a plastic surgeon on a night or weekend when there's a trauma in the house, we usually hear "Oh, just sew it up and we'll see how it turns out and if it needs a revision in a few months they can come see me for a revision."
They're never first to the situation. No matter what the situation.
Relieved to see that the AMA is holding their ground- for now. I don't much like that it took media pressure to get them to clarify the matter, though.
I am glad they are holding the line. Insisting this is the proper medical care is arguing the obvious.
When a High School and earlier biology student I learned about the moment of conception, where Male or Female was determined randomly by which sperm "won the race." It was the 1960's. Nobody wanted to talk about the ramifications of this randomness. I thought about how some students didn't seem comfortable in their skin. I thought "she seems boyish," or "he seems girlish." Nobody wanted to talk about the broad spectrum of characteristics which cause people to seem "different." Here we are talking about it 60 years later, finally. At least it's out in the open, and some people are getting the help they need. The "head in the sand" status of the Republican Party is totally inappropriate, passing laws that make no sense, in an attempt to "make it all go away."
Can't like this enough!
Thank you for the reporting, Erin.
It is nice to see some organizations standing to their commitment to best practices and not bowing to political pressure.