Chair Cassidy Sounds Alarm on AMA Promoting Dangerous Gender Transitions for Children, Defying President Trump’s Executive Order

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, slammed the American Medical Association (AMA) for continuing to promote gender mutilation and castration for children against scientific data. This comes after reports that AMA established a medical fellowship in 2021 to train physicians to perform dangerous gender procedures on children.

Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order (EO) directing federal agencies to ensure children are not subjected to irreversible gender transitions. The EO also directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its agencies to end gender transition services for children covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and the exchanges established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). AMA continues to defy the President's order, putting children in harm's way to advance a radical transgender ideology.

"Unfortunately, the AMA too often has been guided by ideological views in adopting policy resolutions, rather than doing what is right for doctors and patients," wrote Dr. Cassidy. "AMA's recent actions raise questions about whether it is actually prioritizing physicians and patients or simply advocating on its own political priorities."

As chair of the HELP Committee, Cassidy is leading Senate Republicans in ensuring health care entities, including providers and insurers, comply with the President's EO to protect children from irreversible gender transition procedures.

Cassidy is also investigating the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and other medical organizations for promoting gender transition procedures for children without reliable scientific data. WPATH's standards of care influence providers and insurance companies that reference these guidelines when providing care and coverage for gender procedures. HHS has instructed providers not to follow WPATH's dangerous treatment guidelines, highlighting the organization's role in advancing standards based on flawed and inaccurate science.

Read the full letter here or below.

Dear Dr. Mukkamala,

I am writing as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and a physician to seek transparency regarding the American Medical Association's (AMA's) advocacy of "woke" policies contrary to scientific evidence and inconsistent with many of its members' views.

As the largest association representing physicians in the United States, the AMA has a unique responsibility to advocate on behalf of its over 270,000 members and the millions of patients they treat.[1] The AMA is widely recognized as a leading organization representing the voice of physicians in the United States. With that role comes a responsibility to fulfill the public trust and maintain integrity in exercising influence in the policy-making process.

Unfortunately, the AMA too often has been guided by ideological views in adopting policy resolutions, rather than doing what is right for doctors and patients. AMA's recent actions raise questions about whether it is actually prioritizing physicians and patients or simply advocating on its own political priorities. The AMA has taken a number of policy positions related to gender transitions, abortion, forced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mandates, and other positions that run contrary to science and ignore the day-to-day issues providers and patients face.

Gender Transition Procedures on Minors

In one striking example, the AMA has endorsed an unscientific, anti-patient policy supporting gender transition procedures on minors. The AMA's stated position is to "oppose laws and policies that criminalize, prohibit or otherwise impede the provision of evidence-based, gender-affirming care, including laws and policies that penalize parents and guardians who support minors seeking and/or receiving gender-affirming care."[2]

In a recent interview with STAT, AMA's CEO John Whyte stated: "We have to be the voice of medicine" and added, "We have to stand up for science."[3] Yet this policy flies in the face of widely available evidence and conflicts with guidelines and practices adopted in many other countries.

Further, the Daily Caller News Foundation recently reported that the nonprofit AMA Foundation established a LGBTQ medical fellowship in 2021, which provides up to $750,000 in grants to academic medical centers to train physicians to provide transgender "affirming" care and cross-sex hormones to gender-confused pediatric and adolescent patients.[4]Leading academic medical centers, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard Medical School, Vanderbilt University, and Mount Sinai, partnered with the AMA Foundation to provide the fellowships.[5]

In his first month in office, President Trump made clear that protecting children from chemical and surgical castration must be a priority. On January 28, 2025, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 14187 titled, "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation," establishing that the United States will not support gender transition procedures on individuals under age 19, which includes the use of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, or surgery.[6]

The EO condemned guidance issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) as "junk science" and directed federal agencies to enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.[7] The EO also directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its agencies to end gender transition services for children covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and the exchanges established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

HHS subsequently released a comprehensive review in May of the evidence and best practices for promoting the health of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria, which identified "serious concerns about medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, that attempt to transition children and adolescents away from their sex."[8] HHS concluded that a growing body of evidence points to significant risks (e.g., infertility) while finding very weak evidence of benefit, consistent with systematic reviews of evidence around the world.

Other countries adopting this view include Finland and Sweden, where guidelines recommend that psychotherapy should be the standard of care for youth with gender dysphoria, rather than hormones or surgeries.[9] A growing number of hospitals and health systems in the United States also have moved away from providing these unscientific, anti-patient procedures.[10]

Americans do not want federal tax dollars funding irreversible gender transition procedures on children. To that end, I request answers to the following questions by October 7, 2025:

1. What actions, if any, has the association taken to ensure its members' compliance with Executive Order (EO) 14187, which prohibits the funding, sponsorship, promotion, assistance, or support of gender transition interventions for minors?
2. Please describe the types of gender transition services that the association's members either currently provide or have provided to minors at any time, including counseling; speech and communication modification services; behavioral adaptations; puberty blockers; hormone therapy; hair removal; surgical procedures; and resident and fellow medical training.
3. Please provide the sources and dollar amounts of any federal funding received by the association annually.

a. What amount of this funding is utilized for association member and/or health care provider outreach, education, or other initiatives related to gender transition services for minors, including the AMA Foundation's LGBTQ medical fellowship program?

1. Following the signing of EO 14187, please describe what, if any, revisions have been made to the association's guidelines on chemical, surgical, and behavioral interventions for gender transition services for minors.

a. What related guidance or guidelines for practice, including revised scientific literature, has the association provided to its members and/or health care providers?

1. Please provide copies of guidance documents, guidelines for practice, and scientific literature provided by the association from January 28, 2025, to the present to its members and/or health care providers related to gender transition services for minors.

###

For all news and updates from HELP Republicans, visit our website or Twitter at @GOPHELP