In a post for Psychology Today’s blog, LGBTQ health expert Jack Turban urged news media to “stop propagating the repeatedly denounced and factually incorrect reports” from a discredited anti-LGBTQ hate group that masquerades as a legitimate medical organization.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a deceptively named extremist group with an estimated 200 to 500 members whose name is meant to be confused with the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). ACPeds has been designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for spreading malicious lies about LGBTQ people and deliberately misrepresenting legitimate research to attack LGBTQ equality.
While ACPeds was originally formed to protest the AAP’s support of same-sex adoption rights, lately the group has focused on spreading the false claim -- frequently on right-wing websites like Breitbart.com -- that medical care supporting transgender youth is tantamount to “child abuse.” Representatives from other anti-LGBTQ hate groups like the legal giant Alliance Defending Freedom Freedom have cited ACPeds’ anti-transgender misinformation when arguing against nondiscrimination protections for transgender youth at school board meetings.
In a May 8 blog post for Psychology Today, Jack Turban -- a research fellow focusing on child and adolescent psychiatry with a further focus on pediatric gender identity at the Yale School of Medicine -- urged the news media to stop citing the hate group as a reputable source. Turban, also an incoming resident child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, called it “disturbing” that “news organizations and physicians” cite ACPeds as a reputable source. Noting ACPeds' growing political traction through its amicus briefs and other political testimony, Turban called for both the news media and individuals “to stop propagating” ACPeds’ “repeatedly denounced and factually incorrect reports,” saying that the “health of LGBT youth depends on it.”
From the Psychology Today blog post:
Did you read this headline and think I was accusing The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) of hating LGBT people? That’s the problem. A small anti-LGBT group called the “American College of Pediatricians (ACP)” intentionally designed its name to confuse the public into thinking it is the AAP, the largest pediatrics organization in the country.
It is disturbing that news organizations and physicians are citing the 'ACP' as a reputable source. The 'ACP' is a small group of physicians that left the AAP after the AAP released a 2002 policy statement explaining that gay parents pose no risk to adopted children. The Southern Poverty Law Center has repeatedly labeled the 'ACP' as a hate group that promotes false news and fabricated scientific reports. Perhaps more chilling, the group has moved beyond its online reports, deeper into the political arena. They have begun filing amicus briefs to US courts for major cases concerning LGBT rights. Their reports have gained traction, despite clear criticism from physicians with actual expertise in the field. When asked about the 'ACP,' Dr. Scott Leibowitz, medical director of the THRIVE program at Nationwide Children's Hospital and chair of the sexual orientation and gender identity issues committee for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, did not parse his words, “It can hardly be a credible medical organization when it consistently chooses to ignore science and the growing evidence base that clearly demonstrates the benefits of affirmative care with LGBT youth across all ages.”
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I encourage news organizations and individuals to stop propagating the repeatedly denounced and factually incorrect reports from this organization. The health of LGBT youth depends on it.