{"id":645450,"date":"2026-05-15T21:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/645450\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:39:10","slug":"the-texas-medical-association-stays-the-course-on-gender-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/645450\/","title":{"rendered":"The Texas Medical Association Stays the Course on Gender Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, at their annual conference, members of the Texas Medical Association met to develop and approve policies, spearheaded by the organization\u2019s 400-member House of Delegates. Yet despite a changing scientific and legal landscape\u2014with the American Society of Plastic Surgeon\u2019s position statement<\/a> acknowledging the \u201clow quality\/low certainty\u201d evidence underpinning youth gender medicine, and the $2 million payout<\/a> to detransitioner Fox Varian\u2014the conference reflected a continuation of the gender medicine status quo at TMA.<\/p>\n

My October 2025 Manhattan Institute report<\/a>\u00a0on the TMA\u00a0chronicled how\u2014through the influence of an LGBTQ affiliation group with notable biases toward preserving \u201caffirming care\u201d as a civil right\u2014the organization adopted policies that endorse gender medicine as \u201cevidence-based.\u201d That position is increasingly out of line<\/a>\u00a0with the stance taken by other organizations, but TMA committees and councils refuse to revisit the group\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

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One clear sign of the TMA\u2019s positioning was its appointment of John Carlo as chair of the organization\u2019s Board of Trustees<\/a>.\u00a0Carlo is the CEO of Prism Health North Texas<\/a>, an adult clinic specializing in HIV and LGBTQIA+ care. He also has a history of participation in the TMA\u2019s\u00a0influential LGBTQ Health Section<\/a>, which in earlier years discussed ways to use a \u201ctrojan horse<\/a>\u201d to achieve its LGBTQ advocacy goals.<\/p>\n

The TMA has also gotten shrewder about handling dissenting delegates. For example, the Board of Trustees issued a report\u00a0recommending a ban on recording \u201cboard, council, committee, taskforce, and section meetings,\u201d unless it is done by a designated staff member charged with recording official minutes. As my report<\/a>\u00a0noted, TMA-sanctioned meeting minutes\u2014in at least one instance\u2014radically diverged from what members actually recorded, implying a lack of transparency from leadership in what is ostensibly a professional society designed to promote member interests. After mixed testimony at this year\u2019s conference, this policy was also \u201creferred for study.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TMA\u2019s Reference Committee on Financial and Organizational Affairs urged delegates to reject a transparency proposal for reference committees\u2014the bodies that prescreen resolutions. The measure would have required committees to document how evidence and research informed their recommendations. The committee argued that such a requirement would overtax staff resources.<\/p>\n

On gender medicine, the TMA\u2019s Reference Committee on Science and Public Health likewise recommended voting down a resolution calling for a comprehensive review of the Trump administration\u2019s report on pediatric gender dysphoria. The proposal would have required the TMA to align its policies with the report\u2019s evidentiary standards, ethical guardrails, and Texas law. In submitted testimony, key TMA councils and committees opposed the measure. The Council on Science and Public Health also sought to dilute it by removing the alignment mandate. (Members who were present told me that despite the Reference Committee recommendation not to adopt the resolution, it was \u201cextracted\u201d for in-person debate and eventually \u201creferred for further study.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Such actions are hard to reconcile with the responsibilities of a 501(c)6 nonprofit group. Such organizations must serve their members\u2019 interests, remain faithful to their mission, and avoid advocacy untethered to member mandate or evidence. As my report<\/a>\u00a0noted, an internal TMA-wide survey found that only 1 percent of members believed that \u201caffirming care\u201d should be a top organizational priority, while members complained to leadership that \u201ca powerful gender-affirming lobbying bloc is biasing [the] TMA agenda away from our broader, stated mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

This disconnect has also created potential regulatory problems for the TMA. Last year, I reported on<\/a>\u00a0how the TMA\u2019s continuing medical education course on transgender health care directly violates multiple standards for such courses set by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). Shortly thereafter, I filed a formal complaint with the ACCME. Since then, TMA members indicate that the course on transgender health care is no longer available on the website.<\/p>\n

A TMA member who previously took the transgender health care CME for credit logged into the CME portal in March and saw a placeholder note suggesting that the course had been removed because of new legislation. However, Texas has no such law regulating CME content, and the TMA\u2019s course on transgender health care became available after\u202fthe state\u2019s 2023 law prohibiting doctors from performing transition procedures on minors.<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, the TMA said that the course was cleared by the accreditation council but acknowledged that it was not currently offering any courses on pediatric gender medicine. The TMA did not acknowledge my remarks about the placeholder note but asserted that it \u201ccontinues to support CME that is consistent with the laws of Texas and ACCME standards and works to update CME to reflect changes in law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TMA should follow other organizations in updating its view of the evidence. Its failure to do so suggests the need for regulators to act. The consumer fraud probes recently launched<\/a>\u00a0against the\u00a0American Academy of Pediatrics\u00a0and the\u00a0World Professional Association of Transgender Health by the Federal Trade Commission, for example, seem eminently reasonable in this light.<\/p>\n

Medical groups like the TMA have an obligation to inform members of what the best evidence says\u2014and doesn\u2019t say. When they refuse to do so, they\u2019re not just advancing ideological goals; they\u2019re also putting patients at risk.<\/p>\n

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