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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declined to endorse a statement calling for more girls’ participation in sports because it could have been construed to exclude “trans girls.”
Members of the AAP Section on LGBT Health and Wellness (SOLGBTHW) torpedoed adding the organization’s logo to the statement, emails obtained by the Daily Caller revealed. Some fretted that there was “no mention of trans girls” or that the statement didn’t even define “girls.” Others worried that the “controversial” statement could be used against the AAP’s push for male participation in female-only sports.
Girl Talk
In July 2022, AAP senior manager of school health initiatives Carolyn McCarty emailed SOLGBTHW to request their review of “It’s Time to Level the Playing Field for Girls,” a statement created by children’s-health nonprofit GENYouth. Statement co-signers pledged to work to boost girls’ well-being in part by encouraging their participation in sports. They also promised to “address equity, inclusion, and accessibility issues.”
The medical “experts” at SOLGBTHW were aghast that the AAP would even consider endorsing such sentiments.
Section leaders “are very concerned about putting the AAP logo on this statement,” replied SOLGBTHW manager Renee Jarrett.
Jarrett continued:
While the recommendations alone are nice, it’s how it is framed that is concerning — ‘It’s time to level the playing field for girls’ has the capacity to be used against the AAP by those who support cisgender girls[’] participation only in sports and it makes no mention of trans girls.
Pediatrician Kathryn Melland Lowe, who co-authored AAP’s radical transgender policy, added her “significant concerns” to Jarrett’s:
Given the current battles throughout the country in regards to trans girls being able to play sports, I think this could definitely be used against trans youth as it is written…. I would prefer if there was some language in those recommendations making it clear what is meant by “girls.”
Of course, what Lowe wanted was for the statement to define “girls” not as “biological females” but as “biological females plus biological males who identify as female.”
University of Wisconsin associate professor of pediatrics Brittany Allen came back with her own suggested revisions to the statement. Allen wanted to add “all” before “girls” and include a mention of trans girls’ “many barriers to participation and physical activity.” (Not surprisingly, Allen, along with her preferred pronouns of “she/her/hers,” is listed on a website dedicated to “LGBTQ+ affirming providers.”)
Bad Sports
The AAP has been at the forefront of pushing so-called “gender-affirming care,” and it has fought state laws prohibiting males from competing against females by filing amicus briefs in lawsuits against them. For example, wrote the Daily Caller:
In April 2023, the AAP filed a brief challenging West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” a law which banned men from participating in women’s sports. The brief suggested the “health and well-being” of gender-confused males could be threatened if they were denied access to female sports.
“This ban can lead to severe adverse consequences for the health and well-being of transgender female students. Forcing a transgender female student to participate on a sports team identifying as a cisgender male can exacerbate the harmful effects of gender dysphoria and goes against the medical consensus to treat gender dysphoria by supporting the transgender individual in living her life according to her gender identity,” the brief states.
In truth, this sort of treatment for gender dysphoria was never the “medical consensus,” just the consensus of certain ideologues. As the United Kingdom’s Cass review found earlier this year, there is little evidence to support such treatment and much to suggest it is dangerous.
When it comes to sports, even the AAP once understood why boys and girls needed to be in separate leagues. In 1975, the organization wrote in its peer-reviewed journal, Pediatrics:
Postpubescent girls should not participate against boys in heavy collision sports because of the grave risk of serious injury due to their lesser muscle mass per unit of body weight.
Political Science
Nothing about the science of boys’ and girls’ physical differences has changed radically in the last half-century. What has changed radically is the medical profession’s dedication to science. This is witnessed by not only its trans madness, but its unscientific responses to Covid-19.
Thus, AAP’s Jeff Hudson, who joined the Biden administration’s push to (successfully) pressure the already-radical World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) into removing age limits from its guidelines for sex-change surgery, wrote of his reasons for opposing the GENYouth statement:
My thinking is purely political here-the existing headline reads like it was put out by Heritage Foundation or ADF [Alliance Defending Freedom]. I am very hesitant to add the AAP logo as is because it will undoubtedly be used against AAP Chapters. And in this instance, even with the equity and inclusion bullet point, all state legislators and anti-transgender activists are going to see is “Its [sic] Time To Level The Playing Field For Girls” and that’s a core component of their argument.
Jason Rafferty, the lead author of AAP’s transgender policy, wanted the group to steer clear of the statement, noting that
anything right now looking at sports through a binary lens is going to come back and bite us with policy efforts…. I actually don’t think this could be phrased a more controversial, without being explicitly controversial, way.
Meanwhile, giving kids dangerous drugs and mutilating their genitals constitute just another humdrum day at the office for the AAP’s “scientists.”
