Summary

In 2018 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the main US children's doctors' group, issued a policy backing a "gender-affirming" approach for children and teens. It rejected both conversion therapy and "watchful waiting", meaning supporting a child without pushing either way. James Cantor, a psychologist, read the papers the AAP cited and argued they did not back it. Papers cited about conversion therapy were about sexual orientation, and papers cited to criticise watchful waiting actually recommended it. He also said the AAP left out the follow-up studies of children with gender distress, all of which found most stopped wanting to transition by puberty. The piece became influential. In 2023 the AAP kept its policy but ordered a formal review of the evidence. This is one author checking citations, not new data, and the childhood studies it relies on are themselves disputed.

Key findings

• Indlægget kontrollerer kilderne, der er citeret i American Academy of Pediatrics' politik fra 2018 om pleje af transkønnede og kønsdiverse børn og teenagere (Rafferty m.fl.).
• Cantor argumenterer for, at AAP afviste ‘afventende observation’, den tilgang som næsten alle klinikker og faglige grupper brugte dengang, og støttede bekræftelse som den eneste acceptable tilgang.
• Han rapporterer, at artikler, som AAP citerede imod ‘konverterende’ eller ‘reparative’ terapi, handlede om seksuel orientering, ikke om kønsidentitet hos børn.
• Han rapporterer, at flere artikler, som AAP citerede for at kritisere afventende observation, faktisk støttede den.
• Han bemærker, at af 11 opfølgningsstudier af børn med kønslidelse, som alle fandt, at de fleste holdt op med at ønske at transitionere inden puberteten, citerede AAP kun ét (Wallien & Cohen-Kettenis 2008) og nævnte ikke, hvad det fandt.
• I august 2023 bekræftede AAP sin politik fra 2018 på ny, mens den bestilte en formel gennemgang af evidensen som grundlag for en opdatering.

Abstract

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently published a policy statement: Ensuring comprehensive care and support for transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents. Although almost all clinics and professional associations in the world use what's called the watchful waiting approach to helping gender diverse (GD) children, the AAP statement instead rejected that consensus, endorsing gender affirmation as the only acceptable approach. Remarkably, not only did the AAP statement fail to include any of the actual outcomes literature on such cases, but it also misrepresented the contents of its citations, which repeatedly said the very opposite of what AAP attributed to them.

Conclusion

Cantor concludes that the AAP policy statement is not based on the evidence it claims: it omitted the outcomes literature on gender-dysphoric children (every follow-up study finding that most desisted by puberty) and misrepresented its citations, which repeatedly supported watchful waiting rather than the affirmation-only approach the AAP endorsed. The AAP is free to adopt any policy it wishes, he argues, but any assertion that its policy is evidence-based is demonstrably false.