NASPAG’s Position Statement:   Gender Affirming Care for Minors

Created by Nichole Tyson MD and Megan Harrison, MD
In collaboration with NASPAG Advocacy Committee members:  Elizabeth Alderman MD, Rachel Casey MD, Martin Fisher MD, Shaketha Gray MD, Megan Harrison, MD, Kim Hoover MD, Susan Kaufman DO, Kate McCracken MD, Diana Robillard MD, Mary Romano, MD Julie Strickland MD, Nichole Tyson MD, Whitney Wellenstein MD, Noor Zwayne MD

Approved by the NASPAG Board of Directors | April 2021

The North American Society of Adolescent and Pediatric Gynecology has nearly 470 members consisting of physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, and professional health care trainees. Our mission is to provide multidisciplinary leadership in education, research and gynecologic care to improve the reproductive health of all youth, inclusive of children and adolescents who are gender diverse. We advocate for the provision of unrestricted, unbiased and evidence-based practice of pediatric and adolescent gynecology. We stand with national medical organizations supporting comprehensive care of adolescents and the confidential relationship between patients and their physicians (1).  We support the positions that “physicians must be able to practice medicine that is informed by their years of medical education, training, experience, and the available evidence, freely and without threat of punishment. Patients, their families and caretakers in partnership with their physicians, not policymakers, should be the ones to make decisions about what care is best for them.” (1)

1 https://services.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2021/frontline-physicians-oppose-legislation-that-interferes-in-or-penalizes-patient-care/