Open Letter to the AAP

children should absolutely not be allowed to under go hormonal therapy to begin transitioning to the opposite sex. Let them go through puberty naturally. Let them decide when they turn 18 and puberty is done. Transitioning to the opposit gender is physically and psychologically damaging. Children lack the psychological maturity to decide and their parents need to understand that risks for doing such have negative impacts on their life in the long term.

The people behind this will be professionally humiliated in 10 or 20 years but so many promising young lives will have been ruined. Its a tragedy for teen girls and so irresponsible of adults.

I am a physician and I am outraged by the AAP's recent policy statement on the care of the transgender youth. I agree 100% with this petition and with the comments also (especially with Paul George's). Just one question: you can not legally drink before the age 21 but you can change your (and your loved ones ) life forever? When you feel like it? With the help of doctors who sweared to do no harm?

I don’t think children up to 18 years old has the maturity to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.

I am a mom of a teen with rogd and am very disappointed with the current trend of affirmation/medicalization without a thorough mental health assessment and a look at contributing factors. I value diversity and accept those with transgender identities but mistakes are being made with a large portion of rogd children. They deserve to be given quality and individualized care.

Concerned in Canada

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201811/why-is-transgender-identity-the-rise-among-teens

I am a gender clinical therapist who is just beginning to work with teen girls who identify as trans and the approach I take is very different from the ones that so-called ‘gender therapists’ use. I employ an open and curious approach, exploring options other than unproven methods, dangerous drugs and drastic surgeries. Our children deserve a chance to fully explore who they are and to make a detailed analysis about underlying disorders before they are exposed to such radical and life-changing ‘solutions’.

Grass Roots human services professional for over 30 years. I have seen many many youth frustrated in life, and desperate for change. You do a complete disservice to them and flirt the line of abuse of public office and power to succumb to the pressures levied by special interest groups and social engineers. Our children intrinsically know the gender of their body USUALLY. I realize some anomalies lie in the community but since it has become vogue now and a social norm to reject nature, to rage against the status quo and rebel, it represents a whole new level of offense to allow this newest millennial's cultural trends and the sub-cultures that evolve from them to go unchallenged without MUCH MUCH MORE legitimate scientific study, research and consultation. Please change your policy.

We need to help our children access better mental health care, before stating that their anxieties are due to a conflict of gender.

I have chosen not to renew my AAP membership because of this policy statement.

Thank you for this thorough response. I was appalled that such a small group was able to approve such a dangerous policy statement. I hope this will cause the group to rethink and retract it.

I fully support the contents of this letter.

AAP has clearly made a grave mistake here. At this point the facts do not support these radical treatment recommendations.

I have seen first hand as a pediatric nurse in the acute care setting these children and can assert with professional veracity that this current "protocol" of transitioning these children is more detrimental to their psychological health and well being than gently walking them through the turbulent teen years without taking this drastic approach. It is medical child abuse at an unprecedented level. Someday this will be revealed as torture on the level of the Nazi's.

I am a physician from spain

Please, please listen to the voices of reason, not a biased agenda. Protect our children and grandchildren, do not subject them to gender ideology policies that ignore that their minds are not formed enough to make life altering decisions at the risk of their mental health. Just reading the comments prior to mine, it's obvious where all this is leading.....

We physicians took an oath (Hippocratic Oath) to "first do no harm"! We pediatricians, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists and Family Physicians are obligated to protect our children and adolescents from being encouraged and even recruited into embarking on the tragic path of transitioning without the benefit of appropriate therapy to uncover what aberrant, traumatic or brainwashing the child may have been exposed to, which led to them rejecting their own bodies! Please reverse your position n the care of transgender youth! Thank you! Our children are depending on you!

Please protect the innocence of our children and promote children be raised by one man and one woman. Also, please reconsider your AAP Policy Statement of gender dysphoria. Please understand your policy makes it very confusing and unnatural for children to be taught false teachings on gender identity. Thank you for your consideration.

Another parent of an atypical 'ROGD' child who never expressed any hint of dysphoria until receiving a smart phone 6 months ago. Since 'discovering' online that genders (indeed sexualities) are essentially customizable accessories, my young teen now identifies as an "asexual/bisexual genderqueer" who prefers 'they/them' pronouns and currently aspires to have their healthy body surgically and chemically altered. By my child's own admission, they didn't feel dysphoric in any way prior to getting (I now regret) unchecked access to the internet. The AAP needs to consider the emergence of ROGD a little more deeply and the vulnerability of such children.