The American Medical Association (AMA) still supports gender transition procedures for minors, the AMA Board clarified in its March 2026 newsletter. After the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) in early February recommended against transgender surgeries for minors, the AMA issued a cryptic statement that convinced numerous media organizations to report that the AMA had likewise changed its position. The board’s latest revelation clarifies that the AMA still supports all transgender procedures for minors.

“AMA policy on gender-affirming care is unchanged,” affirmed the organization’s membership. “Our recent response to questions about ASPS’s position statement was intended to preserve — not diminish — access to gender-affirming care, and to clarify and reinforce what our policy has long reflected and standards of care. The AMA supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary per our policy.”

In early February, the AMA told numerous media outlets, “The AMA supports evidence-based treatment, including gender affirming care. Currently, the evidence for gender-affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient for us to make a definitive statement. In the absence of clear evidence, surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood. Treatment decisions should be made between the physician, patient and family based on the best medical evidence and clinical judgment.”

An earlier version of the statement issued to National Review even stated, “the AMA agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood” (emphasis added).

The statement “was neither a policy change nor was it an endorsement of a position taken by another medical society,” AMA insisted. The board explained that it asked The New York Times to correct a story “to reflect the actual language the AMA used in response to their inquiry.”

The newsletter provided further background to the ASPS’s change of position and the AMA’s elusive statement, which has not been previously reported.

“In early January members of AMA leadership met with [Centers for Medicate & Medicaid Services administrator] Dr. [Mehmet] Oz at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a grand rounds on gender dysphoria. … That January meeting included representatives from several specialties, including the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS),” it explained. “During the discussion, it became clear that HHS was looking for each society to share their position on gender affirming care.”

The AMA newsletter continued, “The representative for ASPS stated its opposition to gender-affirming surgery in minors and described an increase in requests for surgical reversals. In fact, shortly after the meeting, ASPS released a nine-page position statement outlining their position of opposition to gender affirming care in minors.”

This description fits with a comment from ASPS Executive Vice President Michael Costelloe in a letter to the ASPS Gender Surgery Task Force on February 2. “Over the past several weeks, ASPS [the American Society of Plastic Surgeons], along with a small number of other national medical societies, has been participating in an urgent, time-limited process initiated by a federal agency seeking clarification of medical society positions on this topic,” Costelloe wrote. The comment was cited in an open letter signed by seven members of the Task Force to the ASPS Board, which Task Force member Dr. Scott Leibowitz published on LinkedIn on February 10, as The Washington Stand reported.

However, from Costelloe’s comment, it was unclear which federal agency or process was involved — facts the AMA has now helpfully clarified.

The AMA Board next described their process for crafting the February media statement that led to so much confusion. “Knowing the press would pick up the statement and preparing for the inquiry, the AMA Board chair convened the Executive Committee of the Board to discuss a possible response. That meeting was followed by a full Board meeting, given the level of interest and importance of the issue,” it explained. “The Board agreed on language to be used only if the AMA was contacted by the media, and for the AMA President to use in interviews. During our Board discussion, we were clear that we were not changing AMA policy.”

The board’s statement admitted, “the evidence for gender-affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient for us to make a definitive statement,” and, “in the absence of clear evidence, surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

Based on these statements, numerous media organizations reported that the AMA had reversed itself. A hospital review noted that the AMA “has revised its position on gender-affirming surgeries for minors. The Daily Wire ran an entire piece headlined, “Another Major Medical Group Reverses Course On Trans Surgeries For Minors,” which called “The pivot from the AMA” “particularly stark.” Even the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal failed to catch the sleight of hand, reporting that “Two leading US medical associations [the ASPS and the AMA] have recommended a pause on gender surgery for children and adolescents, citing a lack of evidence.”

These organizations erred through the same leap of logic. If 1) the AMA admits the evidence for transgender surgeries on minors is insufficient, and if 2) the AMA is a medical organization committed to following the evidence, then it opposes transgender surgeries for minors. The AMA Board newsletter clarifies that the conclusion is false. Since this syllogism is valid in form, the rules of logic dictate that one of the premises is false. Since the AMA’s February admission clearly established the first premise, the second premise is false: the AMA is not a medical organization committed to following the evidence.

Yet, at first glance, the AMA’s February statement appears to affirm the second premise in this syllogism too. “The AMA supports evidence-based treatment,” it began. However, the last four words of that statement completely change the meaning: “… including gender affirming care.” Since the statement goes on to admit that so-called “gender affirming care” is not supported by the evidence, these words must be understood as a caveat, a carveout, a contrast with the rest of the sentence.

That is, the AMA will follow the medical evidence except on transgender procedures, where they will follow the political winds of the moment. But, of course, a medical organization that sacrifices the medical evidence to a faddish political ideology is not really following the evidence at all.

The AMA’s February statement further confirmed this subtle misdirection when it advised that transgender surgeries should be “generally deferred to adulthood.” As the March newsletter explains, the word “generally” worked “to preserve — not diminish — access to gender-affirming care.” If readers needed any further hint of the politics at play, the AMA concluded by affirming that the decision should be left between a patient and his or her doctor — a rhetorical flourish ripped right out of the abortion debate, which ignores the fact that underage patients cannot consent, and that their guardians are often coerced to consent on their behalf.

Thus, the AMA statement issued to media outlets in February did not agree at all with the ASPS position change, but it was crafted in a way that would give the informed reader (or reporter) the impression that it did agree. In fact, the version of the statement given to National Review explicitly says that the AMA agreed with the ASPS.

However, the AMA’s confusing language did not hoodwink TWS. On February 4, TWS assessed that “the AMA statement leaves the door open to an undefined number of gender transition surgeries on minors — a stance identical to that taken by the Biden White House to satisfy left-wing activists.” In the March newsletter, the AMA Board now confirms this assessment.

The AMA newsletter devoted even more space to rationalizing the statement it issued. “The AMA did not issue a preemptive statement on these issues,” it noted. “We responded only after being contacted by media outlets, using the language approved by the Board. While some media coverage characterized this as agreement with the ASPS statement, that phrasing [issued by the ASPS] did not come from the AMA.”

This paragraph comes across as defensive in tone. It seems unnecessary to state this unless the AMA Board felt a need to respond to pushback from its membership for apparently backtracking on the issue of transgender procedures for minors. Indeed, if there has been widespread internal pushback, that would provide the best explanation for why the AMA chose to clarify its previously elusive position at all. Before, the AMA enjoyed the advantage of strategic ambiguity; it would only voluntarily give up that advantage if it had turned from an asset into a liability with the constituency that mattered most — its own members.

The AMA will likely face repercussions for reclarifying its position in favor of transgender procedures for minors in the Trump era. Already, 20 state attorneys general had pressed the AMA on its admission that there is insufficient evidence to support transgender surgeries on minors, noting that the same lack of evidence is true for transgender hormone treatments for minors.

Now that the AMA has clarified that it supports all transgender procedures for minors despite the lack of evidence, it will have much more to answer for. But a board savvy enough to issue the misleading press statement in February had to understand the new trap into which they were walking. But, out of loyalty to transgender ideology, they chose to do so anyway.