In a stunning February 3, 2026 Medpage article “Physician Group Opposes Youth Gender Transition Surgery” by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, MedPage Today reports:
“For the first time, a major U.S. physician group has recommended against gender transition surgeries for youths.
On Tuesday, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) sent a position statement to its 11,000 members recommending against gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.”
and
ASPS said its understanding has evolved in light of “additional comprehensive evidence reviews” on gender dysphoria, including an HHS report that was issued last May. Both the HHS report and the U.K.’s Cass Review concluded that the “natural course of pediatric gender dysphoria remains poorly understood,” according to the position statement.
“The HHS report underscores that this uncertainty has significant ethical implications: when the likelihood of spontaneous resolution is unknown and when irreversible interventions carry known and plausible risks, adhering to the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence … requires a precautionary approach,” the statement said.
ASPS emphasized that its advice comes in the form of a policy statement, not a clinical practice guideline, given the “current state of the evidence and variability in legal and regulatory environments.”
It also advised its members to “remain aware of state laws concerning transgender and gender-diverse individuals that may impact their practices,” as many states have banned gender-affirming care in youths.
The ASPS statement comes just a few days after a jury in New York awarded $2 million to a patient who had accused her psychologist and plastic surgeon of failing to obtain adequate consent before performing a double mastectomy on her when she was a teenager. It’s the first malpractice verdict against providers of youth gender care.” (Emphasis added)
She also writes that:
“The position statement breaks with other major medical associations in the U.S., most notably the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Endocrine Society, which support gender-affirming care. It’s also a departure from ASPS’s past stance in 2019, which was that gender surgery can help patients improve their mental health, according to the Washington Post.
The American Medical Association said in a statement that it supports evidence-based treatment, including gender-affirming care. The association agreed with ASPS in part, but stopped short of saying surgeries should be deferred to adulthood in all cases.
“Currently, the evidence for gender-affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient for us to make a definitive statement,” the group said in a statement. “In the absence of clear evidence, the AMA agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”
However,
“The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which develops standards of care for transgender patients globally, reiterated its support for access to surgical care for minors under “cautious guidelines and criteria.”
The group’s guidelines oppose a “definitive age or ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for every patient.” Decisions should be case-by-case, based on the evaluations of multiple types of health experts and experts in adolescent development.
“WPATH stands firm in its commitment to advancing evidence-informed clinical guidelines to help improve the lives and well-being of transgender people around the world,” the group said in a statement.
and:
“AAP president Andrew Racine, MD, PhD, said his organization “does not include a blanket recommendation for surgery for minors” with gender dysphoria. “The AAP continues to hold to the principle that patients, their families, and their physicians — not politicians — should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them.”
Fewer than 1,000 children under age 19 receive gender surgery in the U.S. each year, and the vast majority of those cases are mastectomies, according to a 2023 cohort study.
CONCLUSION
As the Medpage article states:
Nonetheless, the Trump administration has been cracking down on gender-affirming care in the U.S., through the HHS report, as well as through proposed CMS rules that would prohibit hospitals from performing gender surgeries for people under 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
HHS issued a press release supporting the ASPS position statement, with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. congratulating the group for “standing up to the overmedicalization lobby and defending sound science.”
CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, also applauded the move: “When the medical ethics textbooks of the future are written, they’ll look back on sex-rejecting procedures for minors the way we look back on lobotomies. I applaud the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for placing itself on the right side of history by opposing these dangerous, unscientific experiments.”
This will continue to be a hot topic.
What do YOU think?
nancyvalko 