• Politics - Political philosophy - Political theories - Political ideologies - Conservatism - Conservatism in the United States - Conservative organizations in the United States - American College of Pediatricians
• ont-uid: tae8ahba
• DISAMBIGUATION: this entry is about the socially conservative, transphobic advocacy group the "American College of Pediatricians" (ACPeds) - designated by the SPLC as an anti-LGBT hate group.
For the professional association of pediatricians, see "American Academy of Pediatrics", which supports transgender rights.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Pediatrics).
• COMMENT (2023-05-16): the "American College of Pediatricians" has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group", and a "fringe group" which closely collaborates with the "National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality" (NARTH) with "a history of propagating damaging falsehoods about LGBT people, including linking homosexuality to pedophilia".
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_College_of_Pediatricians#Reception ; https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/american-college-pediatricians
• This is the main entry for the "American College of Pediatricians".
"Politics - Political philosophy - Political theories - Political ideologies - Conservatism - Social conservatism - Anti-abortion movements - Anti-abortion organizations - United States - American College of Pediatricians", "Society - LGBT and society - LGBT rights - Critics - United States - American College of Pediatricians", and "Society - LGBT and society - LGBT rights - Transgender rights - Critics - United States - American College of Pediatricians" redirect here.
• curation date: 2023-05-16
• The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a socially conservative advocacy group of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals in the United States, founded in 2002.
The group's primary focus is advocating against abortion rights and against rights for gay, queer, and trans people.
ACPeds promotes conversion therapy and purity culture.
Its membership has been variously reported as between 150 and 700 physicians.
The organization's view on parenting differs from the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which holds that sexual orientation has no connection with the ability to be a good parent and to raise healthy and well-adjusted children.
ACPeds has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for pushing "anti-LGBTQ junk science".
A number of mainstream researchers, including the director of the US National Institutes of Health, have accused ACPeds of misusing or mischaracterizing their work to advance ACPeds' political agenda.
The group was founded in 2002 by a group of pediatricians, including Joseph Zanga, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as a protest against the AAP's support for adoption by gay couples.
In 2005, the Boston Globe noted that ACPeds was being used as a counterpoint to anything the AAP said despite it being run by one employee at the time.
Between 2013 and 2017, ACPeds distributed over 10,000 mailers to doctors as a recruitment strategy.
In 2016 ACPeds reported its membership at "over 500 physicians and other healthcare professionals", while leaked internal documents in 2023 identified approximately 1,200 current and former members with about 700 active.
The ACPeds is currently led by its president, Quentin Van Meter.
ACPeds has vehemently criticized the American Psychological Association as a "gay-affirming program" that "devalues self-restraint" and supports "a child's autonomy from the authority of both family and religion, and from the limits and norms these institutions place on children".
ACPeds has also strongly opposed gender-affirming medical care for transgender children.
In response to the publication by the American Academy of Pediatrics of Just the Facts, a handbook on teen sexual orientation aimed at a school audience, ACPeds issued its own publication, Facts About Youth, in March 2010.
Facts About Youth, along with a cover letter, was mailed to 14,800 school superintendents.
Facts About Youth was challenged as not acknowledging "the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education" by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The ACPeds letter to the superintendents primarily addressed same-sex attraction, and recommended that "well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel" who encourage students to "come out as gay" and affirm them as such may lead the students into "harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue." The ACPeds letter to the superintendents also stated that gender dysphoria will typically disappear by puberty "if the behavior is not reinforced" and similarly alleged that "most students (over 85 percent) with same-sex attractions will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged."
Some scientists have voiced concerns that ACPeds mischaracterized or misused their work to advance its political agenda.
Gary Remafedi, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota, wrote ACPeds a public letter accusing them of fundamentally mischaracterizing his research in their publications to argue that schools should deny support to gay teenagers.
Francis Collins, a geneticist and director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), issued a statement through the NIH accusing the ACPeds of misleading children and parents on its Facts About Youth website.
Warren Throckmorton, a therapist who specializes in sexual orientation issues, similarly stated that his research had been misused, saying of ACPeds: "They say they're impartial and not motivated by political or religious concerns, but if you look at who they're affiliated with and how they're using the research, that's just obviously not true." In an amicus brief regarding the removal of a child from the foster home of a same-sex couple (Kutil and Hess v West Virginia) the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) described ACPeds as a "small and marginal group" which was "out of step with the research-based position of the AAP and other medical and child welfare authorities".
The LGBT advocacy organization PFLAG categorizes the ACPeds as an anti-equality organization, describing the group as a "small splinter group of medical professionals who do not support the mainstream view of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human diversity".
The American College of Pediatricians has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group", and a "fringe group" which closely collaborates with the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) with "a history of propagating damaging falsehoods about LGBT people, including linking homosexuality to pedophilia".
In response to being labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the ACPeds undertook a private campaign with its allies to attempt to discredit the SPLC and to lower its standing on Charity Navigator.
In response to an ACPeds brief, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote that ACPeds is a fringe group that has acted to promote "unscientific and harmful 'reparative therapies' for LGBTQ students".
Surgical oncologist David Gorski has said that statements from ACPeds have been used by quack sites like Natural News to push an anti-vaccine agenda.
Gorski has said that organizations spreading misinformation regarding HPV vaccines have often cited ACPed.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_College_of_Pediatricians
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anti-abortion_organizations_in_the_United_States
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conservative_organizations_in_the_United_States
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Organizations_that_oppose_LGBT_rights_in_the_United_States
• see also: Economy - Wealth - Distribution of wealth - Millionaires - Monty Bennett
• Health - Healthcare - Medicine - Pediatrics - Pediatric organizations - Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine - Commentaries - SAHM Response to Dr. Michelle Cretella
• (2023-05-02, https://www.wired.com/story/american-college-pediatricians-google-drive-leak/) "An Anti-Trans Doctor Group Leaked 10,000 Confidential Files.
A Google Drive left public on the American College of Pediatricians' website exposed detailed financial records, sensitive member details, and more." A doctors' organization - the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) - at the center of the ongoing legal fight over the abortion drug mifepristone has suffered a significant data breach.
A link to an unsecured Google Drive published on ACPeds' website pointed users last week (2023-04) to a large cache of sensitive documents - including financial and tax records, membership rolls, and email exchanges spanning over a decade.
The more than 10,000 documents lay bare the outsize influence of a small conservative organization (ACPeds) working to lend a veneer of medical science to evangelical beliefs on parenting, sex, procreation, and gender.
The American College of Pediatricians - which has fought to deprive gay couples of their parental rights and encouraged public schools to treat LGBTQ youth as if they were mentally ill - is one of a handful of conservative think tanks leading the charge against abortion in the United States.
A federal lawsuit filed by the American College of Pediatricians and its partners against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeks to limit nationwide access to what is today the most common form of abortion.
The case is now on a trajectory for the U.S. Supreme Court, which not even a year ago (2022-06) declared abortion the purview of America's elected state representatives.
The leaked records - first reported by WIRED (this article) - offer an unprecedented look at the groups and personnel central to that campaign.
The leaked records also describe an organization (ACPeds) that has benefited greatly by exaggerating its own power, even as ACPeds has struggled quietly for two decades to grow in size and gain respect.
The records show how the American College of Pediatricians - which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes as a hate group - managed to introduce fringe beliefs into the mainstream simply by being, as the founder of Fox News once put it, "the loudest voice in the room."
A WIRED review of the exposed data found that the unsecured Google Drive stored nearly 10,000 files, some of which are compressed zip files containing additional documents.
These records detail highly sensitive internal information about the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds)' donors and taxes, social security numbers of board members, staff resignation letters, budgetary and fundraising concerns, and the usernames and passwords of more than 100 online accounts.
The files include Powerpoint presentations, QuickBooks accounting documents, and at least 388 spreadsheets.
One ACPeds spreadsheet appears to be an export of an internal database containing information on 1,200 past and current members.
It contains intimate personal information about each member - including various contact details, as well as where they were educated, how they heard of the group, and when membership dues were paid.
The records show past and current members are mostly male and, on average, over 50 years old.
As of spring 2022, the American College of Pediatricians counted slightly more than 700 members, according to another document reviewed by WIRED.
The ACPeds documents breach exposes some material dating back to ACPeds' origin.
The ACPeds documents breach includes mailing lists gathered by ACPeds of thousands of "conservative physicians" across the United States.
(One document outlining recruitment efforts states in bold, red letters: "TARGET CHRISTIAN MDs.") The ongoing recruitment of doctors and medical school students seen as holding Christian views has long been its top priority.
The leaked ACPeds records indicate that more than 10,000 mailers were sent to physicians between 2013 and 2017 alone.
While ACPeds' membership rolls are not public, the leak has outed most if not all of its members.
A cursory review of the member lists surfaced one name of note: a recent commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services - who after joining in 2019, asked that his membership with the group remain a secret.
(WIRED was unable to reach the official for comment in time for publication.) The SPLC's "hate group" designation of ACPeds - which the American College of Pediatricians forcefully disputes - haunted its fundraising efforts, records reveal.
A barrage of emails in 2014 show that the label cost the group the chance to benefit from an Amazon program that would eventually distribute $450 million to charities across the globe.
Amazon would deny the American College of Pediatricians' application, stating that it relied on the SPLC to determine which charities fall into certain ineligible categories.
A strategy document would later refer to a "unified plan" among the American College of Pediatricians and its allies to "continue discrediting the SPLC" - which included a campaign aimed at lowering its rating at Charity Navigator, one of the web's most influential nonprofit evaluators.
One of ACPeds' admins noted that despite SPLC's label, another charity monitor (GuideStar) listed the American College of Pediatricians as being in "good standing." The American College of Pediatricians' GuideStar page no longer says this, and appears to have been defaced.
It now reads, "AMERICAN COLLEGE OF doodoo fartheads," with a mission statement saying: "we are evil and hate gays :(((" The Google Drive containing the ACPeds documents was taken offline soon after WIRED contacted the American College of Pediatricians.
The American College of Pediatricians did not respond to a request for comment.
Leaked communications between members of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) and minutes taken at ACPeds board meetings over the course of several years speak loudly about the challenges ACPeds faced in pursuing its deeply unpopular agenda: returning America to a time when the laws and social mores around family squared neatly with evangelical Christian beliefs.
Many of the American College of Pediatricians' most radical views target transgender people - and in particular, transgender youth.
The ACPeds documents leak - which had been indexed by Google - includes volumes of literature crafted specifically to influence relationships between practicing pediatricians, parents, and their children.
The ACPeds documents leak includes reams of marketing material the American College of Pediatricians aims to distribute widely among public school officials.
This includes pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder - one that's capable of spontaneously causing others - à la the dancing plague (dancing mania, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania) - to adopt similar thoughts and behaviors.
This is one of ACPeds' most dubious claims.
While unsupported by medical science, it is routinely and incuriously propagated through literature targeted at schools and medical offices around the United States.
The primary source for this claim (junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder) is a research paper drafted in 2017 by Lisa Littman, a Brown University scholar who - while a medical doctor - was not specialized in mental health.
The goal of Lisa Littman's paper was to introduce, conceptually, "rapid onset gender dysphoria" - a hypothetical disorder, as was later clarified by the journal that published it.
Lisa Littman would also clarify personally that her research "does not validate the phenomenon" she had hypothesized, since no clinicians, nor individuals identifying as trans, had participated in the study.
Lisa Littman's "rapid onset gender dysphoria" article explains that its subjects were instead all parents who had been recruited from a handful of websites known for opposing gender-affirmative care and "telling parents not to believe their child is transgender." A review of one of the sites from the period shows parents congregating to foster paranoia about whether there's a "conspiracy of silence" around "anime culture" brainwashing boys into behaving like girls; insights plucked in some cases straight from another, more insidious forum (widely known for reveling in the suicides of the people it has bullied).
A 2021 prospectus describing the ACPeds' focus, ideology, and lobbying efforts encapsulates a wide range of "educational resources" destined for the inboxes of physicians and medical school students.
The materials include links to a website instructing doctors on how to speak to children in a variety of scenarios about a multitude of topics surrounding sex, including in the absence of their parents.
Practice scripts of conversations between doctors and patients advise, among other things, ways to elicit a child's thoughts on sex with the help of an imaginative metaphor.
While the ACPeds material is not expressly religious, it is clearly aimed at painting same-sex marriage as aberrant and immoral behavior.
Physicians lobbied by ACPeds are also told to urge patients to purchase Christian-based parenting guides, including one designed to help parents broach the topic of sex with their 11-year-old and 12-year-old kids.
The American College of Pediatricians suggests telling parents to plan a "special overnight trip" - a pretext for instilling in their children sexual norms in line with evangelical practice.
ACPeds suggests telling parents to buy a tool called a "getaway kit" - a series of workbooks that run around $54 online.
ACPeds' workbooks methodically walk the parents through the process of springing the topic - but only after a day-long charade of impromptu gift-giving and play.
The ACPeds books are full of games and puzzles for the parent and child to cooperatively take on.
Throughout the process, the child slowly digests a concept of "sexual purity," lessons aided by oversimplified scripture and well-trodden Bible school parables.
Another ACPeds document ACPeds shared with its members contains a script for appointments with pregnant minors.
Its purpose is made evidently clear: the advice is engineered specifically to reduce the odds of minors coming into contact with medical professionals not strictly opposed to abortion.
A practice script recommends the doctor inform the minor that they "strongly recommend against" abortion, adding "the procedure not only kills the infant you carry, but is also a danger to you." (Medically, the term "fetus" and "infant" are not interchangeable, the latter referring to a newborn baby less than one year old.) The doctors are urged to recommend that the minor visit a website that, like others shared with patients, is not expressly religious but will only direct visitors to Catholic-run "crisis pregnancy centers," which strictly reject abortion.
The same site is widely promoted by anti-abortion groups such as National Right to Life, which last year held that it should be illegal to terminate the pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim.
The effort to ban mifepristone - which the U.S. Supreme Court paused last month (2023-04) pending further review, faces significant legal hurdles but could ultimately benefit from the appellate court's disproportionately conservative makeup.
Most of the legal power in the fight was supplied by a much older and better funded group, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has established ties to some of the country's most politically elite - former vice president Mike Pence and U.S. Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett among them.
A contract in the leaked documents dated 2021-04 shows the ADF agreeing to legally represent the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) free of charge.
It stipulates that ADF's ability to subsidize expenses incurred during lawsuits would be limited by ethical guidelines; however, it could still forgive any lingering costs simply by declaring the American College of Pediatricians "indigent." In contrast to the American College of Pediatricians' some 700 members, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) - the organization from which the American College of Pediatricians' founders split 20 years ago - has roughly 67,000.
The rupture between the two groups was a direct result of a statement issued by the AAP in 2002.
Modern research, the AAP said, had conclusively shown that the sexual orientation of parents had an imperceptible impact on the well-being of children, so long as they were raised in caring, supportive families.
The American College of Pediatricians would gain notoriety early on by assailing the positions of the AAP.
In 2005, a Boston Globe reporter noted how common it had become for the American College of Pediatricians "to be quoted as a counterpoint" to anything the AAP said.
The institution had a rather "august-sounding name," he wrote, for being run by a "single employee." Internal documents show that ACPeds' directors quickly encountered hurdles operating on the fringe of accepted science.
Some claimed to be oppressed.
Most of the American College of Pediatricians' research had been "written by one person," according to minutes from a 2006 meeting, which were included in the leak.
The American College of Pediatricians was failing to make a splash.
In the future, one director suggested, papers rejected by medical journals "should be published on the web." The vote to do so was unanimous (though the board decided the term "not published" was nicer than "rejected").
A second director put forth a motion to create a separate "scientific section" on the group's website, strictly for linking to articles published in medical journals.
The motion was quashed after it dawned on the board that they didn't "have enough articles" to make the page "look professional." The American College of Pediatricians struggled to identify the root cause of its runtedness (runted: stunted).
"To get enough clout" - one ACPeds director said - "it would take substantial numbers, maybe 10,000." (The American College of Pediatricians' recruitment efforts would yield fewer than 7 percent of this goal in the following 17 years.) Yet another ACPeds director said the marketing department advised that "the American College of Pediatricians needs to pick a fight with the AAP and get on Larry King Live." Another ACPeds board member - the notes say - felt ACPeds was too busy trying to "walk the fence" by neglecting to acknowledge that "we are conservative and religious."
• (2023-05-12, https://truthout.org/articles/gop-megadonor-partnered-with-hate-group-to-defund-trans-pediatrics-in-texas/) "GOP Megadonor Partnered With Hate Group 'to Defund Trans Pediatrics' in Texas.
A Republican donor took part in a massive pressure campaign to force a Texas hospital to turn away transgender patients." A recently released trove of documents from the American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDs) reveals how a Republican donor used veiled threats implying legal action against a Dallas, Texas area children's hospital as part of a massive pressure campaign to force the hospital to turn away transgender patients.
In 2021-11 the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program at Children's Medical Center Dallas dissolved after a vitriolic campaign that included attacks by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and - in one incident - protesters showing up at the office of a board member.
Although the clinic (GENECIS) followed the best practices of experts in medical care for transgender kids, opponents claimed without basis that the clinic was engaged in "genital mutilation" of young people.
Behind the scenes, Republican megadonor and hotel magnate Monty Bennett exerted pressure on the clinic (GENECIS), while also pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the war chests of anti-trans lawmakers.
Leaders at ACPEDs (which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) apparently saw Monty Bennett's tactics - using veiled threats and right-wing talking points about trans healthcare to badger the administrators of the children's hospital - as a playbook ACPEDs could reproduce in their nationwide fight against gender-affirming care in the United States.
And the files in the massive release of private data from the hate group (ACPEDs) reflect how right-wing politicians, extremist groups like ACPEDs, and their wealthy supporters often work closely together, sharing rhetoric and tactics with each other.
Monty Bennett's previously unreported emails with Children's Medical Center staff were among the more than 10,000 documents accidentally released by ACPEDs in a massive data breach, as first reported by WIRED.
The cache demonstrates the role the organization - ACPEDs - has played as a clearinghouse for anti-trans and anti-abortion policy in recent years.
Neither Monty Bennett nor ACPEDs responded to the Texas Observer's requests for comment.
Starting in 2019-12 Monty Bennett sent a series of misinformation-packed emails to representatives of Children's Medical about the GENECIS clinic.
Monty Bennett's tactics are tantamount to what is known as "sealioning" - a technique to wear people down with relentless requests for information.
The email chain begins with Monty Bennett requesting "studies/evidence supporting the benefits/outcomes of gender realignment in general and Children's GENECIS program specifically." After receiving a number of position papers and research studies from the hospital's senior director of communications, Monty Bennett asserts that "treating transgender youth early and aggressively is based far more on activist researchers' will than on the ethical treatment of minors or the conclusions of the scientific studies you sent us." While Monty Bennett begins the chain with what seems like genuine curiosity by requesting more information about gender-affirming care, Monty Bennett followed up with an email on 2023-01-26 expressing much stronger views.
That email contains a multi-page, point-by-point critique of the research studies.
Monty Bennett argues that "clinicians are being bullied into writing a radical prescription based on fear and groupthink." But it's actually Monty Bennett's email that is rife with commonly repeated right-wing myths about transgender healthcare designed to stoke fear.
Take, for instance, the idea that transgender identity is somehow contagious - which has been debunked repeatedly by the scientific community.
Another is that European medical research is more advanced and apolitical (meaning: disparaging of transgender healthcare) in its understanding of transgender identity.
Echoing talking points used by right-wing protesters, Monty Bennett described the clinic as a "sterilization program" - yet another commonplace but erroneous misconception about transgender healthcare - and threatened, "You all may very well become bankrupted, regardless of how much insurance your organization carries." "Please stop damaging our children.
Before it's too late," Monty Bennett continued.
"And please send back immediately all the monies Ashford has ever donated to you guys.
I cannot have my firm be associated with your experimentation on children." Ashford Inc. is Monty Bennett's publicly traded firm.
Monty Bennett also asked: "Is it wrong that I will volunteer to testify that you guys knew (by way of this email) that there was very little proof that your sterilization program was either safe or effective?" Monty Bennett's emails to Children's Medical came as Republicans launched a second wave of anti-trans legislation across the United States.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union's legislation map, lawmakers in the state of Texas introduced 66 bills in 2020, exceeding the previous peak in 2016 by 15 percent.
By 2023, the state of Texas had filed more than 520 anti-trans bills across the nation.
Texas leads the pack in terms of anti-trans legislation, with 57 bills introduced by Republican representatives in 2023.
This hateful campaign to criminalize trans youth and the people who take care of them has been met with impassioned protest both in and outside of the (Texas state) Capitol.
But powerful donors and the politicians whose campaigns they support appear hellbent on pushing a religious policy agenda - one that's inexorably tied to the American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDs), as revealed by the path the emails took to land in its hands.
In 2020-11 - months after Monty Bennett demanded money back from a children's hospital - Rob Hays (CEO of Ashford Hospitality Trust, and one of Monty Bennett's top lieutenants) forwarded the exchange to a man by the name of William Stigall.
William Stigall is currently vice president and chief research officer at Cook Children's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and a faculty member at both the Burnett School of Medicine at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and at the University of Dallas - a private Catholic college that's actually based in Irving, Texas.
William Stigall in turn forwarded the emails to Michelle Cretella - the executive director of ACPEDs - where William Stigall sits on the board of directors.
After receiving the emails from William Stigall, Michelle Cretella sent them to her assistant and requested that the exchange be saved in her personal Google Drive folder with the name "HOW TO DEFUND TRANS PEDIATRICS." Michelle Cretella's folder was stored, along with many of her other private files, underneath a folder labeled "Staff Duties - Job Descriptions" on an open Google Drive folder, available to anyone on the internet.
Monty Bennett's substantial wealth could be used as leverage: Monty Bennett donated unknown sums of money to Children's Medical Center Dallas via his company Ashford Inc. as well as significant sums to Republican politicians who were publicly pressuring the clinic.
However, the subject of the email chain, "HOW TO DEFUND TRANS PEDIATRICS," suggests the organization (ACPEDs) believed it could use the same tactics against other clinics like the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS).
Children's Medical Center Dallas declined to comment on Monty Bennett's emails, or how much money Monty Bennett and his companies have donated to the nonprofit hospital.
ACPEDs documents from the leak show that GENECIS had been on ACPEDs radar since at least 2016.
That year (2016) ACPEDs received a letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton thanking ACPEDs for submitting an amicus brief in support of the state of Texas in the landmark abortion case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the 2016 Supreme Court decision that blocked the Texas House Bill 2 anti-abortion law.
While it's impossible to say whether Monty Bennett ever communicated directly with the American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDs), it's clear that members of Monty Bennett's inner circle and ACPEDs members aren't far removed from one another.
William Stigall sits on the advisory board of the Dallas Forum on Law, Politics, and Culture - a group of conservative scholars who advocate "natural law theory" as a foundation for American public philosophy.
Rob Hays also happens to be a member of the Dallas Forum's board of directors alongside multiple professors at the University of Dallas, which often hosts Dallas Forum events.
Minutes of the executive committee meetings show that William Stigall worked on behalf of ACPEDs to build a relationship with the University of Dallas, which offered to host a board meeting and "mini conference" with faculty members.
They also show that the talking points and language used in Monty Bennett's emails broadly echo those promoted by ACPEDs - for example, that therapies provided by clinics such as GENECIS are "permanently sterilizing" minors.
A year after ACPEDs received Monty Bennett's emails, GENECIS formally shut down, citing "patient privacy" as its main concern.
Suddenly, patients who had received care at the clinic were forced to find other providers.
Six months later, a judge ruled that the clinic (GENECIS) could once again take new patients and resume care, but the damage had already been done.
The often-complicated coordination required for managing care for transgender youth that GENECIS had provided families was disrupted.
"The biggest benefit of GENECIS or clinics like it is the coordination of care," said one parent of a transgender child who received treatment at GENECIS, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being reported to the state and investigated under suspicion of "child abuse." "GENECIS was vital.
For most people, clinics like GENECIS may be the first real-life opportunity they've had to see how to be affirming to their child.
It allowed my kid to just have a normal life," the parent said.
"People need to understand just how devastating it was for GENECIS to be closed down." Republican politicians championed the campaign to shut down GENECIS, which also included the efforts of conservative media outlets and a defunct astroturf group known as "Save Texas Kids".
As reported by The 19th News (2022-03-11, https://19thnews.org/2022/03/abbott-genecis-trans-healthcare-youth/): pressure from Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office; an investigative committee led by former Texas state Representative Matt Krause, who led the Republican charge to remove some 850 books on subjects of race and sexuality in schools; a formal opinion from Ken Paxton labeling gender-affirming care as "child abuse"; and a number of bills proposed in the Texas 2021 legislative session contributed to the shuttering of the clinic (GENECIS).
Children's Medical Center in Dallas refused to comment, citing "ongoing legal proceedings." Dr. Ximena Lopez - GENECIS' program director - is engaged in an ongoing lawsuit against Children's Medical Center over the program's closure.
Targeted pressure campaigns on clinics like the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) were but opening forays in a broad push to criminalize gender affirming care in Texas.
Political pressure has continued to build as other clinics providing gender-affirming care have faced similar attacks.
Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas announced in 2022-03 that it would cease gender-affirming care in response to Greg Abbott's call to investigate families with transgender kids who seek healthcare.
Last Friday (2023-05-05) Ken Paxton announced an investigation into Dell Children's Medical Center in Austin regarding allegations that the hospital performed unlawful procedures - an announcement that came shortly after Project Veritas, a far-right outlet known for deceptively edited videos and propagating conspiracy theories, released footage purporting to reveal improper medical practices at Dell Children's.
The latest state-sponsored investigation into a gender-affirming clinic came on the same day that the Texas Legislature was set to discuss proposed legislation that would ban the treatments offered by such clinics.
The legislation proposing to ban gender-affirming care for minors was originally set to be discussed on 2023-05-02, but was delayed due to a procedural move by Democratic elected officials who noted that bill analysis by an advocacy organization had been misattributed in the bill.
The organization was none other than the American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDs).
With the anti-trans bills piling up and Child Protective Services hijacked to serve the Republican Party agenda, families with trans children are already fleeing Texas.
As political threats and protests against gender-affirming care clinics grow commonplace, it's not hard to wonder how many of them are receiving email chains which follow a similar template.
Whether through legislative means or legal threat, Republicans and their wealthy backers seem determined to cut transgender young people off from the healthcare they need to survive and thrive.
MONTY'S MONEY.
Since 2010, Monty Bennett has donated directly and through various companies $215,000 to Greg Abbott, $305,000 to Ken Paxton, and $28,000 to Matt Krause.
The two related bills which ban gender-affirming care for minors - Texas Senate Bill 14 and Texas House Bill 1686 - have a combined 96 sponsors.
Twenty-one of those sponsors have received a total of $142,500 campaign contributions from Monty Bennett and his associated companies - Verbena LLC, MJP Operating, and Dartmore LP - since 2010.
Four of the sponsors - including the authors Texas Senator Donna Campell and Texas Representative Tom Oliverson - received a total of $572,720 from the "Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC", to which Monty Bennett and his company Ashford Inc. together have contributed $100,000 since 2010.
All together, Monty Bennett and his companies have put at least $790,500 over the last 13 years toward Republican politicians who have taken a hardline stance against gender-affirming care.
Monty Bennett was also able to use his wealth to fund a news website that has run exclusively critical reports about the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS).
In early 2021, Monty Bennett resurrected a defunct historic Black-owned newspaper - the Dallas Express - as a right-wing news website that has been linked to a network of partisan "pink slime" news websites associated with businessman Brian Timpone.
Since then, the Dallas Express has demonstrated a knack for extensively covering the activities of right-wing astroturf groups in Dallas, Texas.
Prior to the formal dissolution of the clinic (GENECIS), the Dallas Express ran a handful of articles attacking GENECIS - with all of the articles prominently featuring quotes from a defunct astroturf group, "Save Texas Kids".
The dissolution of the GENECIS program didn't stop the Dallas Express from continuing to hammer the clinic (GENECIS) with attacks and allegations of wrongdoing.
Some 10 articles critical of GENECIS were published after 2021-11 - including an Op-Ed co-written by Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas - that accused the GENECIS of "permanently mutilating" patients.
• (leaked ACPEDs document) "How To Defund Trans Pediatrics".
• https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23790657/how-to-defund-trans-pediatrics.pdf
• local copy: https://files.persagen.com/01/american_college_of_pediatricians-2022-11-how-to-defund-trans-pediatrics.pdf
• (2023-05-17, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/05/anti-trans-american-college-pediatrics-leak-michelle-cretella-abortion/) "A Massive Leak Spotlights the Extremism of an Anti-Trans Medical Group.
How the tiny American College of Pediatricians helped turn fringe beliefs into government policy." Michelle Cretella had a problem.
In 2018, Michelle Cretella - then-president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) - was speaking to the American College of Pediatricians' board of directors about a reputation crisis Michelle Cretella had been trying to shake for years, ever since the Southern Poverty Law Center had put ACPeds on its hate group list.
ACPeds had been small since its beginnings in 2002, when 15 doctors met in Boston, Massachusetts to discuss splintering away from the American Academy of Pediatrics - the mainstream (LGBT / trans-affirming) professional association - in protest of the American Academy of Pediatrics' support for same-sex couples adopting children.
In the years since, ACPeds had found a lane on the religious right using its aura of medical authority to pump out position statements and amicus briefs on a range of social issues - taking stances against abortion and same-sex marriage, and in support of conversion therapy for queer youth and disciplinary spanking for children.
ACPeds' work provided fuel for Christian right power centers like The Heritage Foundation, a major think tank that often cites ACPeds' statements to back up its conservative political agenda, and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF, the legal organization behind many major anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion laws and lawsuits).
But in 2018, with the hate-group label dogging it, ACPeds still faced the same old problems: Only a few hundred doctors had joined its cause, compared to the 67,000-strong American Academy of Pediatrics.
And ACPeds was little-known outside its circle of policy and legal allies, aside from its reputation for anti-LGBTQ extremism.
In one slide of Michelle Cretella's presentation, labeled "What Our Friends Think of Us," she showed directors a picture of Justice League superheroes.
But in another, titled "Perception," she showed them a picture of the KKK.
Last month (2023-04) thousands ACPeds internal documents were exposed on an unsecured Google Drive, shedding new light on ACPeds' inner workings and ACPeds relationships with other groups currently working to curtail bodily autonomy - whether during pregnancy or gender transition.
The 19-plus gigabytes of files include financial records, membership lists, and notes from over two decades of internal meetings, as well as sensitive employee data and login information for ACPeds accounts across the internet.
One or more hackers also vandalized ACPeds' listing on GuideStar - a database of nonprofits - and modified an ACPeds-affiliated website that pushed conversion therapy for queer kids, rewriting it to instead distribute the internal documents.
In a statement, ACPeds executive director Jill Simons described it as "a malicious cyberattack"; ACPeds declined to answer further questions from Mother Jones.
The leaked ACPeds documents provide a treasure trove of information about the tactics and ideology of a group - the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) - that has long played a supporting role in the conservative culture wars.
Wired - which first reported on the leak (2023-05-02, https://www.wired.com/story/american-college-pediatricians-google-drive-leak/) - spotlighted ACPeds board meeting minutes from 2017 that identified "threats to the American College of Pediatricians" - including "mainstream medicine, psychology, academia, media, corporate America and nominal Christians, churches and organizations." The Texas Observer dug into one email chain - saved under the file name "HOW TO DEFUND TRANS PEDIATRICS" - that showed how a Republican donor pressured a Dallas-area children's hospital to turn away transgender patients.
According to an agenda for the spring 2018 board meeting, an Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney had recently told ACPeds that "it was best that the American College of Pediatricians was not religiously affiliated in order to provide maximum benefit for our message." Yet the gathering, at a Hilton Garden Inn in Atlanta, Georgia began and ended with a prayer.
Michelle Cretella delivered her report, outlining a need to recruit more doctors and acquire funding.
With an annual budget of around $140,000, only a couple of support staff, and the hate-group label clinging to them, ACPeds had a hard enough time getting members to pay their dues, much less recruit new colleagues.
According to ACPeds' meeting minutes, ACPeds relied on in-kind donations from higher-profile right-wing groups - media training from Alliance Defending Freedom, messaging advice from The Heritage Foundation, and free video production through its close relationship with Family Watch International (a Christian fundamentalist group known for its founder's opposition to decriminalizing homosexuality).
What's more, Michelle Cretella told the directors, she was feeling burnt out.
A document listing her responsibilities from around that time included speaking to journalists and radio hosts, researching and writing in opposition to bills to ban conversion therapy, and acting as a "sole reviewer of amicus briefs for ACPeds." Michelle Cretella also pursued donations from groups like Legatus (an association of Catholic businesspeople), and a potential deal with Signal Health (a software service for doctors offices that was considering putting ACPeds content on waiting room TVs), according to ACPeds' board meeting minutes.
Michelle Cretella told the ACPeds board she fielded daily emails from parents, reporters, and right-wing groups, who most often inquired about trans and queer issues.
Trans issues, in fact, were one of the main areas where ACPeds was gaining traction.
According to a copy of Michelle Cretella's slides and meeting minutes, Michelle Cretella informed the board that the transgender movement had reached "a tipping point" after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
Michelle Cretella said that the movement signified "impending tyranny," would change "what it means to be human," and would "forcibly eliminate" religion and free speech.
Consider the 2018 New York City Pride parade: a 10-year-old kid who liked to dress up in drag would be marching with the support of their parents - "a celebration of pedophilia," Michelle Cretella's presentation called it.
So Michelle Cretella shared a "message of hope" with the board: ACPeds was showing up for this fight.
Andre Van Mol - who helped lead ACPeds' committee on adolescent sexuality - was already recruiting anti-trans allies in California.
("We find friends in unlikely places," Michelle Cretella's presentation stated.
"Trans ideology has LGB enemies.") (COMMENT: Michelle Cretella's "Trans ideology has LGB enemies." is a classic wedge tactic: splitting the "T" from "LGBT".) According to the ACPeds' board minutes, Michelle Cretella touted "the American College of Pediatricians' collaboration with an unlikely group: radical feminists," who "are concerned about the use of hormones in children with Gender Dysphoria and are helping the American College of Pediatricians with this battle." And amid political and legal fights over whether trans kids should be banned from using public school restrooms that match their gender identity, incoming ACPeds president Quentin Van Meter - a pediatric endocrinologist referred to in meeting minutes as "the bathroom expert" - gave lectures in the U.S. and overseas and filed court briefs critiquing the transgender movement.
Michelle Cretella herself had become a prolific public speaker and writer, arguing that providing trans kids with gender-affirming medical care amounted to "child abuse." YouTube banned a video - in which Michelle Cretella equated transgender identity with mental illness - for violating the platform's policy on "hate speech," according to The Daily Signal - a Heritage Foundation-affiliated news site that had produced the video.
Separately, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine called one of Michelle Cretella's Daily Signal articles "vitriolic deception" based on "medical omissions, circumstantial facts, hateful interpretation and peripheral context." Among the claims SAHM debunked (https://www.adolescenthealth.org/Advocacy/Advocacy-Activities/2017-Activity/Senate-Bill-439-(2).aspx) was Michelle Cretella's statement that "twin studies prove" no one is born transgender.
In fact, the very study Michelle Cretella cited found that in 20 percent of identical twin pairs in which at least one twin identifies as transgender, the other twin identifies that way, as well - "far above the gender dysphoria national average of 0.3 percent," the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine wrote.
(Michelle Cretella did not respond to a request for comment.) "Getting the message out is our duty and privilege," Michelle Cretella's presentation to the ACPeds board said.
"We've read the Book.
We know we're on the right side of history." The ACPeds board agreed that when Michelle Cretella's term as president expired that summer, Michelle Cretella would stay on as executive director at a salary of $20,000, and they voted to bump Michelle Cretella pay to $25,000 later that year.
ACPeds' IRS forms through at least 2020 do not disclose that Michelle Cretella was compensated, however.
Brian Mittendorf - an Ohio State University professor who specializes in nonprofit accounting, and who reviewed the ACPeds forms at the request of Mother Jones - says payments to an executive director "should definitely be reported." Mittendorf also noted the seeming contrast between ACPeds' outsized reputation and its tiny budget.
"Their financial capacity is such that it's surprising they would have a national footprint," Brian Mittendorf said.
Some of the organizations that help amplify ACPeds' message are lining up behind the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) in the wake of the leak.
"The recent hacking of the @ACPeds shows the desperation of the woke side," tweeted Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
"One of our most important allies, American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), is still reeling from several vicious online attacks," The Heritage Foundation wrote in a fundraising email.
The Daily Signal ran an interview with Jill Simons, who called the exposure of the documents and subsequent hacking attempts "illegal bullying tactics that amount to a hate crime." Jill Simons told The Daily Signal that she believed the attack was related to ACPeds' current role in a closely watched anti-abortion lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in which ACPeds is seeking to eliminate access nationwide to the abortion pill mifepristone.
ACPeds - in addition to being a co-plaintiff in the case - is also a founding member of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is serving as the lawsuit's lead plaintiff.
The complaint, which was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) - along with the ruling of a lower-court judge who accepted its arguments - have been widely panned for cherry-picking and mischaracterizing research to claim, falsely, that mifepristone causes high rates of serious complications.
In reality, over 100 studies have concluded the medication is effective and safe; it was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and was used in the majority of U.S. abortions as of 2022.
ADF senior counsel Erik Baptist declined to comment on the ACPeds files.
Erik Baptist said that in the mifepristone case, "the FDA chose to cherry-pick and rig the data, and the courts correctly admonished the agency for its unreasonable decisions." Today (2023-05) - five years after Michelle Cretella's board presentation spotlighting the "impending tyranny" of the transgender movement - ACPeds members commonly show up at state legislatures, courts, and other official venues to testify in favor of bans on gender-affirming medical care for trans kids.
(Such care typically involves puberty blockers for pubescent children or hormone therapy for teenagers, and is supported by mainstream medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.) As Mother Jones reported in a 2023-03 investigation revealing the previously undisclosed emails of a secretive anti-trans working group (2023-03-08, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/anti-trans-transgender-health-care-ban-legislation-bill-minors-children-lgbtq/), ACPeds leaders including Michelle Cretella and Andre Van Mol helped shape language and messaging for the first wave of bills to ban transition-related care for youth in 2020.
In Alabama - one of the first states to pass a ban - at least four ACPeds members - Den Trumbull, Scott Field and Susan Field, and Bill Whitaker - testified in support of the legislation, according to an ACPeds committee's report to the board.
And last year (2022) in Florida - when the Ron DeSantis administration wanted to end Medicaid coverage for transgender health care, - the state of Florida paid Andre Van Mol at least $15,104.55 and Quentin Van Meter at least $12,417.28 to provide "expert" reports and reviews on the topic, as Health News Florida reported.
Andre Van Mol sent a Florida agency a lengthy compilation of citations and talking points making a case against gender-affirming care - a version of a document labeled "Opus" in the exposed ACPeds Google Drive.
When the Florida state agency was sued for discrimination, it brought in ACPeds founder Joseph Zanga as an expert witness.
Meanwhile, some ACPeds members have had their testimony on transgender issues limited in court.
One of them, Paul Hruz - a professor at Washington University in St. Louis - has acted as an expert witness in cases related to gender-affirming care in Arkansas, Florida, and North Carolina.
Yet in the North Carolina case, a judge barred vast swaths of Paul Hruz's statements, finding that Paul Hruz was "not qualified to offer expert opinions" on the diagnosis and causes of gender dysphoria or the effectiveness of mental health treatments for gender dysphoria.
The judge permitted Paul Hruz - a pediatric endocrinologist - to speak only on the risks of prescribing hormone treatments to teens and adults.
"His (Paul Hruz's) conspiratorial intimations and outright accusations sound in political hyperbole and pose a clear risk of inflaming the jury," the judge wrote, explaining he was blocking Paul Hruz' statements about "Cancel Culture"; "transgender and allied political activists"; and the "Transgender Treatment Industry." Paul Hruz did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the claims Paul Hruz had tried to make in that case was that "the vast majority of children who report gender dysphoria" will "grow out of the problem ... and willingly accept their biological sex." That claim is based on "old studies on gender identity with outdated and overbroad definitions of gender diversity and gender dysphoria," explains Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale.
"Older studies would classify 'tomboys' and self-identified males with effeminate traits as those with gender dysphoria." Yet ACPeds' position statement on gender dysphoria in youth repeats the claim six times.
That part of its position statement has in turn been cited by the Promise to America's Children coalition - an active anti-trans campaign led by The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom , and the Family Policy Alliance (the lobbying arm of Focus on the Family).
ACPeds is a "foundational resource of disinformation," says Heron Greenesmith - a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, who tracks anti-LGBTQ organizing.
"When the Heritage Foundation writes something, or when the Family Policy Alliance writes something about the dangers of trans-affirming care for youth, or the dangers of abortion?
Either they directly cite to ACPeds, or it's one or two clicks away." Yet the narrative ACPeds pushes has taken hold: Seventeen states have so far passed laws banning gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.
Those bills have sparked nine court challenges, with judges placing temporary holds on bans in Alabama, Arkansas, and Missouri.
The fate of the abortion drug mifepristone is currently pending at the Fifth Circuit.
As for Michelle Cretella, the burnout won.
Michelle Cretella resigned from the position of executive director of ACPeds in late 2021, along with the American College of Pediatricians' communications and executive administrators.
"I cannot recommend my position to anyone," a summary of Michelle Cretella's exit interview reads.
For a time, Quentin Van Meter stepped up to replace Michelle Cretella, along with Jill Simons, a pediatrician affiliated with Children's Minnesota and Mercy Hospital.
For now, Jill Simons runs the show.
"Although the title no longer says 'interim,' I still very much consider my job an interim position," she wrote in a January update to board members.