There's a small conservative group of doctors that have really been
at the forefront of pushing for abortion restrictions and
bans on gender affirming care across the country.
Now, thanks to a trove of their documents that they accidentally left accessible
to the public.
We know more now about their strategy, their agenda, and
how they're trying to recruit more conservatives.
Now, this group is called the American College of Pediatricians, and
it sounds super official and legit,
but really it has this unassuming name that says it's reputable, not the case.
They have a clear conservative agenda influenced by religious beliefs.
So we know this from the Washington Post.
For years, the group has presented statistics and talking points to state
legislators, public school officials, and the American public as settled science.
While internal documents emphasize how religion and
morality influenced its positions.
Meeting minutes from 2021 describe how the organization worked with religious
groups to affect the idea makers through the high courts,
professional literature, and legislatures.
It promotes conversion therapy,
a discredited practice intended to change a sexual orientation or
gender identity of LGBTQ people that most medical societies warn can result in harm.
Pediatric experts deemed a June 2022 report crafted by the group
that undergirds a new Florida policy banning trans care for
Medicaid recipients as unscientific.
And unfortunately, they've been pretty successful in what they've been doing.
The organization has successfully lobbied since 2021 for laws in more than a half
a dozen states that ban gender affirming care for transgender youth.
With its representatives testifying before state legislatures against the guidelines
recommended by mainstream medical groups, according to its records.
It gained further national prominence this year as one of the plaintiffs in
the federal lawsuit to limit access to the mifepristone.
Arkansas first enacted such a law in 2021 after Michelle Cretella,
then executive director of the American College of Pediatricians.
Described such care as experimental and dangerous to legislators.
A federal appeals court temporarily blocked it.
But versions of the law have since been passed.
At least 20 other state legislatures have pushed them through.
And it's not just trans people who are targeted.
Internal records from 2010 show how the group tied homosexuality to health risks,
even death.
In a letter campaign to educators, citing a 1991 study to demonstrate that for each
year adolescents delay self labeling as gay, the risk of suicide decreases by 20%.
The 2010 letter from the American College of Pediatricians to 14,800 public school
superintendents urged school officials not to affirm any student expressing
homosexuality.
It directed them to a website operated by the group that pushed sexual
reorientation therapy for those with unwanted homosexual attractions.
Now, more recent reputable research indicates that suicide risk actually
rises with therapy directed at changing one's sexual orientation.
And other major medical groups are highly skeptical of their claim,
including the similarly named American Academy of Pediatrics.
Yeah, now the academy, which said more than 95% of its members are physicians,
has pointed to strong consensus among the most prominent medical organizations
worldwide.
That evidence-based, gender-affirming care for trans children and
adolescents is medically necessary and appropriate.
That definitely seems to be a consensus of those who are actually informed and
knowledgeable and who should be speaking on the subject.
But for some reason, we still have individuals out here,
like the aforementioned group, that are looking to get people hurt.
>> I think the most important thing to understand, first and
foremost when it comes to gender affirming care for trans youth.
Is that quite literally,
it is just about making sure that children go through whatever puberty they
are the most comfortable with at the normal puberty age.
And it quite literally is just that, anybody that wants to tell you,
like in fearmonger about, my goodness, it's this big, scary,
terrifying thing, it's so new and experimental.
It's actually not.
We know what testosterone does, we know what estrogen does.
Quite literally it is what is going to drive your puberty.
It's gonna be one or the other, right?
And so, fundamentally, it's all just about making sure that kids go through
the puberty that they are the most comfortable with.
And any scary long term side effects are literally the same scary long term side
effects that anybody would get from either puberty, right?
Whether it be with testosterone or estrogen.
And we kind of just know the risks of going through testosterone puberty,
going through estrogen puberty.
And so, the issue is, when you have these people that fear monger and try and
make it seem like it's this super experimental thing.
That we couldn't possibly know any information about,
despite the fact that we've literally been doing this for decades.
Despite the fact that we kind of understand how biology works,
at least like testosterone and estrogen work, for the most part.
We kind of have that down a little bit in terms of where the scientific
community is, where the medical community is.
They've all come to pretty solid conclusions about what is actually
beneficial.
And then, of course,
they're the same types of people that are pushing conversion therapy.
Which I think the Washington Post article sort of soft pedals a little bit there,
because it's not just that conversion therapy can be harmful.
It's that conversion therapy, realistically, is just torture,
that's what it is.
They torture people into trying to get them to stop being gay or trans.
And that, I think, is evil, actually.
And I think anybody that supports it is evil.
So, I don't know.
Bold take of me, I guess, right there, say it's wrong to torture people
into trying to get them to change their sexuality.
But that really, I think, speaks to the shamelessness of the political right
today, where they're pushing a lot of this same old, homophobia, transphobia.
They're quite literally bringing back the Satanic panic that they did in the 90s.
These right-wingers, they're three seconds away from taking away kids Pokémon
cards and telling them that they're Satanic, right?
I wouldn't be surprised if there are a bunch of conservatives doing that
right now talking about like, my goodness, Pokémon is gonna trans your gender.
And it's ridiculous and it's vile.
And it is unfortunately,
what is fueling a lot of terroristic threats across the country.
Quite literally, there are tons of organizations that have got bomb threats
from people who are inspired by these right-wing freaks that keep trying to fear
monger about trans health care.
They keep trying to equate it to child grooming and stuff like that.
Then they go tell their ridiculous base all of these things.
And then their ridiculous base,
they start calling in bomb threats to children's hospital,
calling in bomb threats to schools for letting kids just play sports, right?
And then they call in threats to target and stuff like this.
And so fundamentally,
it's more than just specifically trans people in this instance.
Obviously, trans people are the main target.
But ultimately,
this is about the political right trying to strip people of bodily autonomy, right?
It's trying to strip women of bottom of the autonomy.
It's trying to strip anybody with uterus of bodily autonomy.
It's trying to strip children of their bodily autonomy.
Because fundamentally, the political right thinks that women and
children should be nothing other than property for CIS, het white men.
And that is it.
That is at the core of this.
And so, fundamentally, it is this incredibly dangerous ideology that is
unfortunately fueling a ridiculous amount of violence across the country.
And if you're a cisgender person and you think this won't affect you,
I hate to break it to you.
But there's a whole group of people called trans investigators that are dedicated to
finding trans people just to harass them.
And lo and behold,
they're really bad at identifying who is trans just by looking at them.
And they also target a lot of CIS people.
So, if you are a CIS woman that has any trait that any right-winger
considers to be too masculine.
Well, you might find yourself in a bathroom where they're kicking down
the stall and dragging you out violently calling the police on you.
Because that is what the Republicans fundamentally want from all of
these bills.
And that is exactly what institutions like this, which put out fear
mongering about HRT for trans youth, are really trying to instigate.
>> Thank you so much, Trent.
>> On that transvestigator note,
I think it was just this week there was a nine year old girl in Oklahoma,
I think in a foot race or something benign like that, who won?
And then these lunatic right-wing people cornered her and her parents,
claiming that the girl was transgender.
Obviously, and trying to make her parents prove it right there in front of
everybody, a nine year old.
So, this isn't just fear mongering, they're doing this right now.
I do hope that Benny's right about Satan making a comeback, though.
I've been waiting on that for years.
Praise the Dark Lord, but also, this group of doctors, they're really shifty.
They're trying to hide the ball.
You could tell with that name, American College of Pediatricians.
Normally with a group like this, their name is something like
Patriotic Pediatricians for Freedom and Jesus or whatever.
And you see a name like that and you're, okay, I can stop listening now.
But they've got a whole other strategy, so they know what they're doing.
And I think it's because they're trying to grab an outsized portion of influence and
power that they haven't really earned, right?
It's indicative of a larger thing that goes on in this country in our
politics sometimes.
The actual group of politicians, the American Organization of Pediatricians or
whatever it is, they have like 60 to 7,000 members.
This group has 700, right?
So it's like 1%,
which is the type of thing I tell myself to help myself sleep at night.
700 is still too many doctors to feel this way, but
they shouldn't have even the amount of power and
influence that they do, but they use these underhanded tactics to grab them.
But this reminds me of revelation, I think,
that most adults have at some point in their adulthood,
which is, some doctors are dumb or bad or crazy.
You're kind of raised to trust doctors and believe doctors always know or whatever.
Nope, some of them ain't worth the damn, just like any other profession.
So, there's at least 700 of them in this particular industry,
and they've coalesced in this awful group.
So boo them [LAUGH].
>> Very much, so and they're also trying to expand, of course.
And we're seeing their members being featured on tons of right-wing media
outlets.
And so, definitely keep your eyes peeled because these people need to piece out,
and hopefully that comes sooner than later.