Detransitioners Booted From American Academy of Pediatrics Conference

A conference hosted by the largest professional association of pediatricians in the United States kicked out a group of detransitioners who sought to share their perspectives with doctors, The Daily Wire has learned.

Detransitioners are individuals who attempted the impossible — to change their gender through hormonal or surgical transgender interventions — before stopping treatments and living as their biological sex. They are largely ignored in the mainstream media and dismissed by medical organizations. But many detransitioned individuals have taken their stories to social media and grown large followings as they spread awareness about the dangers of so-called “gender-affirming care.”

BREAKING: The @AmerAcadPeds has kicked out a detrans group that included Chloe Cole, Abel Garcia, Soren Aldaco, and Nicolas Flowers from their annual conference. Why is the AAP preventing doctors from hearing these stories? pic.twitter.com/GI0smBFF2C

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 30, 2024

The American Academy of Pediatrics voted in 2023 to reaffirm its 2018 policy statement promoting so-called “gender-affirming care” and authorizing the development of guidance for pediatricians based on a “systematic review of the evidence.” AAP CEO Mark Del Monte promised at the time that AAP will continue to “ensure young people get the reproductive and gender-affirming care they need and are seen, heard and valued as they are.”

Members of the Alliance for Mental Health, a coalition of groups advocating for mental health over medical treatments for gender confusion, attended the American Academy of Pediatrics conference this weekend in Orlando, Florida. Detransitioners Chloe Cole, Abel Garcia, Soren Aldaco, and Nicholas Flowers were present, along with activist Erin Friday and January Littlejohn.

The group spent over $25,000 on a booth where they could easily access attendees, Friday shared with The Daily Wire. Their goal was to communicate with the doctors who were traveling from around the world to attend the conference. And they were successful, Garcia told The Daily Wire, until they were booted from the conference on Monday morning, their third day at the conference.

Video footage shared with The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh shows a security guard claiming that one of the individuals had violated “the code of contact last year.” The guard tells them they need to “leave the event immediately” and return their name badges, giving them about five minutes to disassemble their booth.

3/ Rather than speak for themselves, the AAP sent venue security to inform these mental health professionals, mothers, and detransitioners that they had 10 minutes to pack up their booth and exit the conference venue. pic.twitter.com/ZatB9hLfpu

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 30, 2024

“They don’t want detransitioners here at the AAP,” Littlejohn can be seen telling the guard. “They want to pretend that they don’t exist. What’s really sad is, our information was really well received by the pediatricians here. We are very concerned about the mental health of people with gender dysphoria, and it’s really time that the AAP acknowledge the harm that’s occurring.”

The AAP did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire explaining which individual was problematic enough to get them removed from the conference. Littlejohn believes they were removed because of their message: that the AAP should not be endorsing so-called “gender-affirming care,” transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, for minors.

Garcia acted as the Spanish coordinator for the Alliance for Mental Health, he said on Monday, sharing that his job was to speak with Spanish attendees from countries including Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala. The doctors with whom their group spoke were “shocked” to discover what the AAP has condoned, Garcia said. These doctors reportedly shared that in their countries, adults were seeking gender transitions, but such procedures were not being pushed on children.

6/ “We matter, our voices matter, and our health matters. We went through such a traumatic medical experiment, and yet we’re still constantly put into this turmoil…” said Nicolas Flowers, another detransitioner escorted from the event. @nicolasblooms pic.twitter.com/PnIXo3far0

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 30, 2024

“I believe our efforts were successful,” Garcia shared in a phone interview on Monday. “Our goal was to not get kicked out on the first day…being kicked out on the third day was the best option because that way we had the max amount of time to communicate with the attendees about protecting children and why the AAP supports mutilating children and ‘gender-affirming care.'”