By Tony Perkins, CP Op-Ed Contributor Wednesday, February 11, 2026iStock/ronniechua
This month, the American Medical Association (AMA) reminded the country why you should always get a second medical opinion.
For more than a decade, the AMA has supported irreversible surgeries and experimental drug treatments for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. At the same time, it has actively opposed policies designed to protect those very children. Chief among those efforts was the SAFE Act, legislation Family Research Council helped craft in 2020. The Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act, first introduced and passed in Arkansas, prohibits irreversible surgical procedures and the experimental use of drugs on minors to suppress or alter their biological sex.
Despite the AMA’s aggressive campaign urging governors to oppose such protections — claiming these procedures were “medically necessary” — the movement to safeguard children continued to gain momentum. Roughly six years later, 27 states and Puerto Rico have adopted some version of the SAFE Act. Even in cases where governors accepted the AMA’s recommendations — such as former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and outgoing Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) — legislatures overrode those vetoes.
Now comes the stunning reversal.
This week, the AMA acknowledged that there is insufficient evidence to continue supporting surgical interventions on minors under the banner of “gender-affirming care.” While the organization stopped short of fully repudiating the experimental use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, it conceded that the evidence does not demonstrate surgical benefit for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. This announcement followed a more robust statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reaching a similar conclusion.
The admission is welcome — but it raises unavoidable questions.
If there was insufficient evidence to justify these irreversible procedures — procedures that permanently remove healthy body parts — why was the AMA intervening so forcefully in public policy debates to block laws protecting children? On what basis were its claims of medical necessity made?
The answer appears less scientific than ideological.
For years, a growing body of international research has warned against these interventions. Finland, Sweden, and England all reevaluated and restricted pediatric gender treatments after reviewing outcomes data. In May of last year, even the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged that the evidence supporting medical intervention for minors was weak at best.
So why the change now?
Was it the accumulation of research showing not only a lack of benefit, but demonstrable harm?
That’s literally the two-million-dollar question.
On January 30, a New York jury awarded $2 million to a 22-year-old woman, Fox Varian, who had been pushed into a double mastectomy at age 16 after identifying as male. Her mother testified that she opposed the surgery but was told the alternative was a dead daughter or a living son — a coercive tactic documented by former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey during his investigation into the industry.
Suddenly, the cost of playing make-believe became real.
It appears the prospect of accountability — not compassion — finally prompted the AMA’s concession. And if trial lawyers are now entering the conversation, perhaps the medical establishment has discovered what parents and lawmakers already knew: children deserve protection, not experimentation.
Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.
