The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) is urging educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex.
In a joint statement, ACP president Michelle Cretella, ACP vice president Quentin Van Meter, and Paul McHugh of the Johns Hopkins Medical School warned that conditioning children to believe that "impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse."
"Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to 'gender clinics' where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs," they said.
This, they said, ensures that they "will 'choose' a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults."
ACP said, "Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: "XY" and "XX" are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder."
"The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminisation and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognised as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex," the statement read.
The doctors declared that "no one is born with a gender."
"Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one," they said. "No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child's subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as 'feeling like the opposite sex' or 'somewhere in between' do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women."
They said, "a person's belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking."
"When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such," the ACP stated.
It said these children suffer from gender dysphoria, a recognised mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V).
According to the ACP, puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous.
"Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child," it said.
The DSM-V said as many as 98 percent of gender confused boys and 88 percent of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
ACP warned that children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence.
"Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer," it said.
It added that rates of suicide are 20 times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery.
"What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88 percent of girls and 98 percent of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?" the ACP asked.
