Parents of Transgender Teens Object to American Academy of Pediatrics’ New Guidelines on Hormone Therapy

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued new guidelines to “ensure comprehensive care and support for transgender and gender-diverse children” which included an endorsement of hormone therapy. The group of parents whose children identify as transgender object to the new guidelines and said they “will continue, and possibly worsen, the harm brought to many children by the recent radical changes to treatment guidelines for transgender-identifying youth.” 

Someone published the letter from over 1,100 parents of transgender teens on the Gender Clinic Support Board. The parents believe the AAP is acting with the best of intentions but say they “are deeply concerned that the clinicians using affirmation therapy are inadvertently inflicting physical and psychological harm.”

The group said they are “critical of the phenomenon of transgender youth growing at epidemic rates.” They further explained, “Over the past decade, there has been an exponential rise of predominantly adolescent girls who are suddenly declaring themselves trans after the onset of puberty and who have no previous history of gender dysphoria (GD).  Historically, GD showed at a much earlier age and has been exceedingly more common in boys.

The concerned parents voiced a special concern about the introduction of puberty-blocking hormones. They…