The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) has released a position paper denouncing popular approaches to transgender, declaring that the current protocol is founded upon “unscientific gender ideology,” which lacks any basis in real evidence.

The physicians argue that the assumption that gender dysphoria (GD)—a psychological condition in which people experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and their biological sex—is innate contradicts all relevant data and is based on ideology rather than science.

Studies have shown, the authors contend, that the “perspective of an ‘innate gender identity’ arising from prenatally ‘feminized’ or ‘masculinized’ brains trapped in the wrong body is in fact an ideological belief that has no basis in rigorous science.”

“GD is a problem that resides in the mind not in the body. Children with GD do not have a disordered body—even though they feel as if they do,” the doctors note. “Likewise, although many men with GD express the belief that they are a ‘feminine essence’ trapped in a male body, this belief has no scientific basis.”

“Conditioning children to believe the absurdity that they or anyone could be ‘born into the wrong body,’ and that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse,” the paper argues.

The largest study ever of twin transsexual adults found that only 20 percent of identical twins both identified as transgender. Since identical twins contain 100 percent of the same DNA from conception, and develop in exactly the same prenatal environment, if gender identity were innate, the concordance rates would be close to 100 percent—rather than 20 percent.

Clinical case studies “suggest that social reinforcement, parental psychopathology, family dynamics, and social contagion facilitated by mainstream and social media, all contribute to the development and/or persistence of GD in some vulnerable children,” the paper states. Therefore, treating gender identity as if it were something to be “explored” and “discovered” is completely misguided, the doctors contend.

In point of fact, studies have shown that gender dysphoria among children is radically reduced when they are not encouraged to impersonate the opposite sex, the authors note. Encouraging gender fluidity and identity experimentation among children is one of the primary causes of gender dysphoria.

The new ACP paper, titled “Gender Dysphoria in Children,” elaborates on an earlier statement released in the spring, which sent shock waves through the medical community and earned the physicians the wrath of LGBT activists.

One LGBT advocacy group, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, AL, placed the American College of Pediatricians on their extensive list of “hate groups,” a list that includes some 900 groups that do not share the SPLC ideology—such as the American Family Association, the Family Research Council and the Jewish Defense League.

The ACP’s chief crime has been to upset the apple cart by disputing ideologically based, politically correct positions regarding sexuality from the perspective of scientific fact and clinical studies.

For example, the ACP scientifically disputed the widely held belief that non-heterosexual attractions are inborn or innate, arguing instead the evidence-based position that these attractions develop from the interaction of a multitude of influences in an individual’s life.

The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) is a national organization of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals, with members in 47 states, and several countries outside of the US.

The College’s membership includes such luminaries as Dr. Paul McHugh, who was the director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University for 27 years, during which time Johns Hopkins was the leading hospital in transgender studies.

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