by Ireland Owens
American Parents Coalition (APC) unveiled new resources for parents to help identify whether their child’s pediatrician is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, alleging that the group “prioritizes political activism,” the Daily Caller News Foundation first learned.
APC’s newly launched campaign includes a how-to resource showing parents how to use the AAP’s own public physician directory, identify if they are designated as a “Fellow” of the AAP (FAAP), conduct additional checks of their pediatrician’s credentials and examine state and federal guidance on parental access to their child’s medical information. The resource also directs parents to a letter template they can use to effectively communicate expectations with their child’s doctor.
APC is also launching a new website, dubbed AAPActivism.com, which parents can use to find available information about the AAP’s “transgender activism.”
“Parents deserve accountability and transparency when it comes to their child’s medical care and should not worry about political agendas tainting medical guidance,” APC executive director Alleigh Marré told the DCNF in a statement. “While receiving millions of dollars in federal funding, the American Academy of Pediatrics advances dangerous transgender interventions and procedures for kids which prioritizes political activism over best practices.”
“Parents deserve to know what kinds of guidance their providers advocate for and should be allowed to receive care that is best for their child,” she continued.
The AAP did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
APC previously alleged that the AAP “has a long track record of pushing policies that favor a political agenda over the well-being of children, such as transgender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, while using federal funding to do it.”
The AAP claimed in a June 28, 2025 X post that “gender-affirming care remains evidence-based, medically necessary care that improves the health and well-being of transgender youth.”
In February, the AAP filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for launching a probe into its guidance on sex-change procedures for minors, the DCNF previously reported.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a Nov. 19, 2025 statement that the American Medical Association and the AAP’s “so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people.”
The AAP’s push for “gender-affirming” medical interventions on minors tracked a sharp rise in youth gender-clinic programs over the past decade, as hospitals opened dedicated pediatric transgender services and professional groups framed puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries as evidence-based care. Critics, including parent groups and some clinicians, argued the model elevated identity affirmation over watchful waiting and treated a rapidly expanding cohort of adolescents — disproportionately girls with co-occurring mental-health conditions — as candidates for irreversible treatment.
That model has since contracted. Vanderbilt University Medical Center shuttered its Pediatric Transgender Clinic in June 2023 after Tennessee banned puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries for minors; families were told prescriptions would not be refilled and appointments were canceled ahead of the law’s July 1 effective date. VUMC also stopped performing so-called gender-affirming plastic surgeries on adults in February 2026, citing operational limits, while remaining barred from pediatric interventions under the state law the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in United States v. Skrmetti.
Similar pediatric programs have closed or suspended youth medicalization at major hospitals nationwide—often after state bans, federal funding threats, or reviews that found the evidence base weak—leaving the AAP among the last large U.S. medical organizations still defending the original protocol as medically necessary.
– – –
Ireland Owens is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
