This is the article that appeared in the April 2025 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects
the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
No one has done a better job addressing modern-day child abuse than Sen. Josh Hawley. That is why Bill Donohue wrote to him on February 24 asking him to expand his reach.
Donohue commended him for introducing a bill, “The Jamie Reed Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act,” that would allow minors who were harmed by sex-transition procedures to bring lawsuits against those who participated in this abuse.
Good as this is, Donohue implored him to address the role played by the medical schools, the American Medical Association and other professional associations. “They provide legitimacy for these acts of child abuse,” he said. He offered several examples how this is done.
The medical watchdog, Do No Harm, reports that in a five-year period, 2019-2023, approximately 14,000 children underwent sex-change operations. There is big money in this scam—the hospitals charged nearly $120 million. They have the support of elite medical schools, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
Mass General is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It has a specialized gender-affirming care unit. Surgeries include the creation of a vagina and a penis. Boston Children’s Hospital is also a teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School; it operates “the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States.”
Other medical schools that do the same work include Johns Hopkins, Stanford Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, the Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Yale Medicine and the Duke University School of Medicine.
While all of these institutions matter, the AMA is the most influential. What it professes is alarming: “Designating sex on birth certificates as male or female, and making that information available on the public portion, perpetuates a view that sex designation is permanent and fails to recognize the medical spectrum of gender identity.”
“Self-identification is no substitute for biological truisms,” Donohue said. “There are but two sexes—male and female—and no amount of chatter about ‘the medical spectrum of gender identity’ can change this verity. Quite simply, what the AMA professes is anti-science.”
Donohue explained that given its commitment to subjectivism, “it is not surprising to learn that the AMA supports transgender persons joining the military.” Regarding children, it has a policy that says “Exclusionary Bathroom Policies Harm Transgender Students.” This means that boys who claim to be girls should be free to shower with girls. It also believes that male prisoners who falsely claim to be female should be housed in women’s prisons, no matter how violent the men are.
Donohue concluded, “You have done yeoman work. Please consider expanding your reach to address the damage that the AMA is doing.”
