ACPeds Announces New Initiative to Help Protect Minors from Gender Transition Procedures

There are currently 23 states with laws in effect that protect children from gender transition procedures (GTP) and protect parental rights. States such as Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee have their own SAFE Acts that either ban GTPs for minors entirely or mitigate particular aspects. Nebraska, for instance, “protects minors from experimental drugs,” as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins highlighted on Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.”

To support these 23 states, Dr. Quentin Van Meter, former president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), commented on the organization’s new initiative, Biological Integrity. “[W]e are dealing here with science, not ideology,” Van Meter shared on “Washington Watch.” Biological Integrity is designed to be “a reliable medical resource on the topic of gender dysphoria for parents, teens, physicians, schools, and policymakers,” the website reads.

“[O]ur website is basically for everyone to know better, to learn about the science and to come up with a … much more positive way to treat these kids,” Van Meter shared. He discussed how the website is geared toward having compassion for children who have fallen victim to gender dysphoria. “[W]e have a really beautiful way to get them through their issues and have them come out on the other side as whole, medically sound individuals,” he said.

“It’s all scientific-based truth,” Perkins added. According to the ACPeds announcement, the website has FAQs, up-to-date data and research, connections to doctors and therapists, and other helpful tools. Dr. Jill Simons, executive director of ACPeds, said in a statement, “The term ‘biological integrity’ denotes living in consistency with one’s natural, biological self — the integrated whole of body and mind. Children and adolescents should be loved, and taught to love themselves, as wholly male or female. Children are always born in the right body.”

Additionally. Dr. Michael Artigues, president of ACPeds, shared, “The massive push we are seeing for children to become the targets of experimental, life-altering drugs and surgeries is ideological in nature, … and deeply disturbing to doctors who have devoted their lives to ethical, compassionate care for their most vulnerable patients — children.”

Van Meter described transgenderism as “a conveyor belt [system] of social, then medical, then surgical transition,” and explained how children are being “railroaded” into it. He shared how nearly 100% of minors who get roped into gender-affirming ideology get to the point of medical transition through the use of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. “[B]oth of which are not good for the healthy human body,” he said. “It destroys so much of what the body was intended to be and cannot really ever create.”

Perkins noted how, even with the scientific evidence, many have put science in the “back seat.” Van Meter added that “the references chosen and repeatedly used to justify the ideology … are extremely low-quality studies that really shouldn’t have seen the light of day in any reputable medical journals.” But, as he emphasized, it is the ideologues who own the editorship of the journals.

Perkins highlighted how resources such as Biological Integrity are helpful for building a “community on solid scientific facts.” As Perkins argued, many doctors are likely conflicted — wanting to do what is right while being pressured by the medical associations who have bought into the transgender movement.

“[Biological Integrity is] for everybody who has a skin in the game, whether they have kids with gender dysphoria who are trying to decide what they would like to do or where they should go for help,” Van Meter concluded. “[T]his is nothing about being negative. It’s all about the positive nature of human beings helping each other.”