Administration health officials praised a statement released Tuesday by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) that advises against conducting “gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery” on people under the age of 19, even though such procedures are rarely conducted on minors. The ASPS based its statement on two recent reports from the U.K. and the U.S. that were widely criticized by transgender healthcare advocates as being biased.

In its statement, the ASPS admits that it didn’t reach its conclusions through “a formal guideline development process,” independent systematic assessment of existing medical evidence, consultation with consensus panels of medical experts, or strength-of-recommendation determinations weighing the benefits of gender-affirming care against its potential risks.

Related

Wisconsin pediatric hospitals end gender-affirming care, risking health of trans youth.

Rather, the organization admitted that it based its findings wholly on the U.K.’s infamous 2024 Cass Report (which excluded numerous studies demonstrating the benefits of gender-affirming care) and the U.S. Department of Health’s 2025 review (which was anonymously generated in 90 days, underwent no peer-review process, and resulted from a U.S. executive order seeking to ban all gender-affirming care for trans youth).

Both the U.K. and U.S. documents suggested conversion therapy for trans youth, disregarded all research and guidance produced or endorsed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and contradicted the best practices in gender-affirming care all for trans youth recommended by all major U.S. medical associations.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“More recently, a number of international health systems and professional bodies initiated formal re-examinations of earlier clinical practice assumptions in response to changes in patient presentation and a growing uncertainty about the benefits of medical and surgical interventions,” the ASPS statement says, without mentioning that the two reports it based its findings on were created by governments whose leaders have a stated desire to restrict gender-affirming care.

“Systematic reviews and evidence reassessments have subsequently identified limitations in study quality, consistency, and follow-up alongside emerging evidence of treatment complications and potential harms,” the statement continues.

However, critics of the U.K. and U.S. reports noted that both rejected numerous studies affirming the benefits of gender-affirming care based on standards “that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric [medical studies]” and for not using “blind” methodology in which researchers are kept ignorant about which participants receive gender-affirming medications.

The ASPS’ statement claims that “available evidence suggests that a substantial proportion of children with prepubertal onset gender dysphoria experience resolution or significant reduction of distress by the time they reach adulthood, absent medical or surgical intervention.”

But recent studies have shown that trans youth tend to be consistent in their identities, even after a decade. The findings mirror what has overwhelmingly been found in studies on trans adults, that very few people detransition. A 2024 study found that 97% of trans youth don’t regret transitioning, and another study from the same year showed that fewer than 1% of patients who undergo gender-affirming surgical procedures end up regretting it. In fact, rates of regret are higher for people who get tattoos, elective plastic surgeries, bariatric weight loss surgeries, or have children, the study found.

The ASPS also advises against puberty blockers for trans youth, saying, “The current values and preferences framework … places a higher value on achieving more favorable aesthetic effects in adolescence and places a lower value on avoiding potential harm from early pubertal suppression.”

But the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and other major medical associations have all found gender-affirming care to be safe and essential to the overall well-being of trans youth. The associations consider puberty blockers as a safe, essential, effective, and reversible means of treating gender dysphoria for the overall well-being of young patients.

Despite the limitations of the ASPS’s statement, the organization said it opposes the criminalization of gender-affirming care. It also said that its policy statement “does not seek to deny or minimize the reality of any patient’s distress, and it does not question the authenticity of any patient’s experience.”

“Instead, ASPS affirms that truly humane, ethical, and just care, particularly for children and adolescents, must balance compassion with scientific rigor, developmental considerations, and concern for long-term welfare,” the statement said.

White House health officials praised the ASPS policy statement, The Hill reported.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said, “We commend the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for standing up to the overmedicalization lobby and defending sound science. By taking this stand, they are helping protect future generations of American children from irreversible harm.”

Criticizing the study, trans activist and civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo wrote, “The American society of plastic surgeons has no issue with the tens of thousands of minors getting nose jobs and other cosmetic surgery but they decided that they want to support bans on trans youth care and align with [the president’s executive order] rather than actual medical science.”

“There would be a whole lot of people opposed to minors getting cosmetic surgery if they knew about it. But there wasn’t a billion dollar campaign involving an entire political party, several billionaires, and dozens of think tanks pushing it,” Caraballo added, also noting that ASPS President Bob Basu has contributed substantial amounts to the president.

“If you’re wondering why they shifted positions now to align with the [current presidential] administration… This was a political decision,” she wrote.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

In just two words, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg summed up Donald Trump’s attempts to get people to stop asking about his decades-long friendship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Buttigieg was asked about how Trump posted a fake AI-generated video to social media showing former President Barack Obama getting arrested last week during an appearance on the syndicated radio show The Breakfast Club earlier this week.

Related

Pete Buttigieg explains how the Epstein files might tear apart the MAGA base: “Extraordinary”

“They tried to rig the election, and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that,” Trump told reporters on July 22, referring to the 2016 presidential election. A representative for Obama called the accusations “bizarre” and “a weak attempt at distraction.”

Buttigieg noted that it’s telling that Trump made this accusation as he faces sharp criticism from his base for refusing to release documents from the investigation of Epstein.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“So Trump says, ‘We’re gonna release the files, we’re gonna release the files, we’re gonna release the files,'” Buttigieg said, referring to files from the Epstein investigation. “Then he says, ‘We’re not gonna release the files.'”

“And people are mad, including MAGA, saying, ‘Wait a minute, you said you were going to release this information and you’re not.’ And what does he do? He’s like, ‘Uuhhhh, we’re gonna arrest Obama!'” The hosts laughed, and then Buttigieg summed up what he believes Trump is trying to do with a quippy phrase.

“What? That has nothing to do with anything, but it’s the distraction machine.”

“Whenever things get hard for Trump, he fires up the ‘Distraction Machine,’” Buttigieg wrote in the caption for the post. “We’re not falling for it.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pete Buttigieg (@pete.buttigieg)

Trump has been under fire all month after his administration announced that it would not release information learned from the investigation of Epstein, including the wealthy clients for whom Epstein is rumored to have provided underage victims to sexually abuse. Trump has spent the month making increasingly hostile statements about people who want the rumored “Epstein client list” to be made public.

Last week, House Speaker Mike Johjnson announced that the House would adjourn early in what was seen as an effort to stall Democrats’ attempts to make the Justice Department release the Epstein files. The House is scheduled to reconvene in September.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors. While the medical examiner determined that his death was a suicide, many people, especially on the right, do not believe that it was, instead asserting that he was killed to keep him silent about the clients for whom he found children to sexually abuse.

Many officials associated with Trump had spent years repeating the same rumors, and Trump himself said repeatedly in 2024 that the “Epstein list” of clients needed to be released.

In February, Attorney General Bondi said that she was reviewing “a lot of names” related to the Epstein investigation and said that the Epstein list is “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

But earlier this month, the Department of Justice released a memo that said there was no “secret client list” and reaffirmed the 2019 finding that Epstein died by suicide. Many Trump supporters were outraged that the rumored client list wouldn’t be released, while many on the left speculated that the reason Bondi wasn’t releasing it is because Trump himself – or at least high-ranking members of his administration – is on it.

Trump had a decades-long friendship with Epstein and joked about how his friend was “fun” and “terrific” and liked women “on the younger side.” Trump has also been found liable for sexual abuse by a jury, has admitted to sexually assaulting women in the past, and has admitted to walking in on underage girls as they changed clothes. He has been accused of sexual assault or other forms of sexual impropriety by at least 27 women.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.