‘The New York Times’ and 20 State AGs Expose Medical Groups’ Trans Agenda

The walls continue to close in on “trans” and gender ideology. 

On January 30, a New York State jury awarded a 22-year-old woman $2 million in damages for her 2019 double-mastectomy intended to cure her gender dysphoria. Just days later, two major medical organizations — the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association — both admitted on February 3 that the research “is insufficient” for them to continue removing perfectly healthy body parts from gender confused children and adolescents.

Overnight, “the science” became much less “settled.” That unsettling continues.

In fact, the case is getting so strong against “gender-affirming medicine” that even The New York Times felt compelled this week to publish an absolute smoker of an op-ed demonstrating how bad the facade is. The piece was written by Jesse Singal who describes himself as a “left-of-center” journalist and has doggedly reported on the problem of trans activism by elite medical associations for a decade. He masterfully lays bare the problems these organizations created for themselves by simultaneously serving two irreconcilable masters: gender politics and evidence-based medicine. The latter has been sacrificed on the altar of the former.

Singal explains, “The science doesn’t seem so settled after all, and it is important to understand what happened here.” Simply accepting what these ostensibly august associations had to say in their now collapsing support for gender ideology rests upon, according to Singal, “a deeply naïve understanding of science, human nature and politics, and how they intersect.” He indicts liberal groups like GLAAD and the ACLU who have claimed all important medical experts agree that “gender affirming care is life-saving care” and “anyone who questions these treatments, even mildly, is invariably accused of bigotry.”  

Singal starts with examining the embarrassing track record of the widely trusted American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which has a long record of advocating for gender ideology. Back in 2002, activists within the AAP convinced the organization to publish a major technical report supporting intentionally motherless or fatherless homes as optimal for child well-being. The report served as groundwork in the emerging push for “gay marriage.” They were all too eager to throw in with the trans political agenda.

He calls out assertions like this made by the AAP in its 2018 policy statement supporting “comprehensive care and support” for gender confused children: “Accordingly, research substantiates that children who are prepubertal and assert an identity of [transgender or gender diverse] know their gender as clearly and as consistently as their developmentally equivalent peers who identify as cisgender and benefit from the same level of social acceptance.”

Singal correctly calls this “an extreme exaggeration of what we know about this population,” adding, “The AAP was instructing clinicians to take 4- and 5-year-olds’ claims about their gender identity as certainly true.” Also note the APP’s use of meaningless non-scientific gender jargon like “gender diverse” and “cisgender.” Singal explains this is why the meticulous “Cass reviewers scored this policy statement so abysmally, giving it 12 out of 100 possible points on ‘rigor of development’ and six out of 100 on ‘applicability.’”

He also documents how long-time members of the APP have reported being “stonewalled” when raising scientific questions about the organization’s trans policies and “in many cases the AAP document’s footnotes don’t even support the claims being made in the text.” Yet, the “shakiness” of the APP’s claims didn’t matter as they were “cited numerous times in news accounts and court documents as evidence that the most important pediatric association in the country supported youth medical transition.”

Singal also explains how the American Psychological Association (APA) has had a hard time keeping their story straight on the transgender issue. In a 2024 policy statement “addressing misinformation” on the issue from “legislative efforts to restrict access to care,” the APA confidently warns no one should “disregard the comprehensive body of psychological and medical research supporting the positive impact of gender-affirming treatments … for individuals across the lifespan.” Yet, he points out, just one year later the APA claimed, “Psychologists do not make broad claims about treatment effectiveness.” He gives other examples demonstrating that “it seems undeniable that the 2025 APA published what the 2024 APA considered to be ‘misinformation.’”

Singal then takes a fair run at the American Medical Association (AMA) which now believes those who are underage should be protected from trans surgeries because the evidence is “insufficient.” Yet in 2021, the AMA’s executive vice president James Madara told the National Governors Association (NGA) that “gender affirming surgeries” are “supportive interventions based on the current evidence” and “evidence has demonstrated that forgoing gender-affirming care can have tragic consequences.” This includes “the provision of medically necessary gender transition-related care to minor patients.” The 2026 AMA is demonstrably at odds with the 2021 AMA.

Singal writes in The Times’ pages that “political forces are the culprit” for how these elite medical organizations could end up taking diametrically opposed “research-based” conclusions within years of each other. He states, “You cannot automatically trust what these organizations say at a given moment.”

He’s not wrong. Trans activism has demolished these associations’ own credibility.

An additional blow to the AMA comes from 20 state attorneys general who have signed onto a Feb. 23 letter to that organization’s CEO commending it for now opposing surgical mutilation for gender confused children. Yet they ask why it has not made the shift away from hormonal treatments.

These attorneys general, in their 13-page letter supported by 41 careful footnotes, remind the doctors of the AMA that the 2024 systematic review on puberty suppression commissioned as part of the U.K.’s Cass Review concludes, “There are no high-quality studies using an appropriate study design that assess outcomes of puberty suppression in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria/incongruence.” Thus, “No conclusions can be drawn about the effect on gender-related outcomes, psychological and psychosocial health, cognitive development or fertility.” In other words, the AMA and all other medical and activist organizations are wrong to claim there is “settled science” on hormone treatments for gender confused children.

They conclude their letter, “We thus request that you clarify some issues regarding the AMA’s position on the provision of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria.” These issues are communicated in 14 detailed questions on topics like the AMA’s recent ideological involvement in Tennessee’s United States v. Skrmetti case; how they now align with World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the AAPs’ untenable policy positions; and if the AMA has conducted its own literature review on the efficacy of gender intervention.

These attorneys general end by stating, “We know that we share a common goal in wanting to protect patients and their families and ensure that they receive trustworthy information about their medical care.” They ask the AMA to respond to these questions by March 25, 2026. They are on notice.

The manufactured veneer of “settle science” on “trans” medicine is now crumbling because it was never sustainable. It has been built on the lie that gender is a spectrum, and that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression” as the AMA’s April 2021 letter to the National Governors Association put it. This is all work mainstream journalists could have done, if they were true to their calling. Instead, most have carried water for the pro-trans movement. The New York Times has now broken that elite silence in publishing Jesse Singal’s excellent expose and are to be congratulated.

Additional Resources:

A Singularly Christian View of the Transgender Problem

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System

The APA’s 5 Failed Critiques of HHS Report Discrediting Sex-Rejecting Procedures for Kids

Florida Sues Medical Groups for Promoting ‘Transgender’ Mutilation of Children

What Does it Mean to Be Trans, Anyway?

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

American College of Pediatricians: No Benefits From ‘Gender-Affirming’ Interventions