LEAKED FOOTAGE: Medical Org Vows To Fight Trump’s Crackdown On Transgender Ideology

The organization that facilitates medical education in the United States promised to fight federal and state efforts to crack down on transgender ideology, leaked footage obtained by The Daily Wire shows.

Top leadership at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) promised to continue backing challenges at a town hall meeting last month, according to footage obtained by Do No Harm. In addition to administering the MCAT, the medical school admissions test, the AAMC sponsors the accrediting body for allopathic medical schools.

In an October 8 virtual town hall, AAMC President David Skorton said he was “very concerned” about the federal and state crackdown on transgender ideology and that the issue was a “high priority” for his organization when asked about so-called “attacks” on the transgender community.

“It’s easy to say we’re very concerned, but we are very concerned about this. Not only because of health care issues … but also other issues related to not just health care, but the psychological effect on people who will feel excluded and actually attacked,” Skorton said during the meeting. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, and it’s definitely, definitely a high priority for us.”

VIDEO: Leaders of the Association of American Medical Colleges double down on their support for transgender procedures and promise to continue challenging state and federal actions to protect kids from the life-altering procedures. The video was obtained by @donoharm pic.twitter.com/l11PYI0evU

— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) November 18, 2025

Answering the same question, Frank Trinity, the AAMC’s chief legal officer, noted that the organization is backing a challenge to the Trump administration’s executive action cutting off funding for hospitals that perform transgender procedures on kids.

“Since 2022, the AAMC has been a part of a coalition of more than 20 national medical groups, joining an amicus effort filed in many courts across the country supporting challenges to mostly state laws that would essentially prohibit gender affirming medical care,” Trinity said.

Trinity added that the landmark Supreme Court case that upheld Tennessee’s right to protect kids from transgender procedures was a “setback.”

“There was a setback, as you know, in the Skrmetti case coming out of Tennessee with the Supreme Court dismissing a challenge,” he said, referencing Skrmetti v. United States, which held that states can bar transgender procedures for minors. “But those cases are still going forward. There’s two different cases challenging the executive order that would effectively ban federal support for gender affirming medical care.”

He noted that the AAMC had joined in a coalition with other professional medical organizations in filing an amicus brief at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that cuts funding for entities that promote child transgender procedures.

“Gender-affirming care supports an individual with gender dysphoria as they explore their gender identity in contrast with efforts to change the individual’s gender identity to match their sex assigned at birth, which are known to be ineffective and harmful,” the brief claims.

“Empirical evidence indicates that [transgender procedures], including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to carefully evaluated patients who meet diagnostic criteria, can alleviate clinically significant distress and lead to significant improvements in the mental health and overall wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

The care advocated for by the AAMC included treatments like puberty blockers and placing young kids on cross-sex hormones, both of which can have permanent impacts on fertility, sexual health, and bone development.

The AAMC has joined numerous other briefs challenging both federal and state laws protecting kids from transgender procedures. This includes an effort at the district court in Maryland to block Trump’s executive actions and state laws in Ohio, Montana, Arkansas, and many others.

“We will continue to be a part of that coalition,” Trinity said after discussing the AAMC’s legal efforts.

Speaking on the issue in broad terms, Malika Fair, the AAMC’s chief community, opportunity, and engagement officer, said that the organization was focused on “supporting the entire patient population as well, which is under attack.”

Skorton then jumped in to say that “our colleagues in the medical profession” were also under attack.

The AAMC works with 171 accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada, over 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, and 70 academic societies.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm, called the footage from the AAMC town hall troubling.

“It is concerning that the AAMC, which is essentially a political activist organization, has so much influence over medical schools and future doctors,” he told The Daily Wire. “Its support for irreversible pediatric sex-change procedures demonstrates how disconnected the group is from biological reality and evidence-based practices.”

In more of the footage, the AAMC leaders were questioned about their approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

“I want to be plain about it. I believe as I have for decades that the data show that more diverse teams do a better job of solving problems, especially in complex situations, and there are a few things more complex than medical care,” Skorton said. “So, I believe that working for a more diverse medical workforce is an imperative, and I believe that we’re doing that, and we’ll continue to do it with all deference to the law, and, I guess that’s a straightforward answer to it.”

“We’re committed to continuing to work for a more broad background in those delivering healthcare, of course, in line with the law,” he added.

LEAKED VIDEO: The president of the Association of American Medical Colleges says that he remains committed to pursuing a “diverse medical workforce.” The group has rebranded its DEI efforts in recent weeks. The video was obtained by @donoharm. pic.twitter.com/DHlPKrwumI

— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) November 18, 2025

This commitment to diversity came after Skorton sent out an email on October 3 to AAMC announcing that it would be rebranding its affinity group on “Diversity and Inclusion” to be called the Group on Collaboration, Engagement, and Community.

“This change is being made in part to align with how programming has evolved for this group and the AAMC, as well as in response to feedback from member institutions who continue to experience external pressures,” the email said

“The AAMC’s mission and vision are not changing,” Skorton wrote. “We remain deeply committed to convening our community and supporting the professional development of our constituents through these affinity groups.”

Reference to the group has already been scrubbed from the AAMC’s page on affinity groups, but archived pages show that the purpose of that group was to “guide the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout medicine and biomedical sciences.”

Do No Harm, which released a comprehensive 80-page report last year highlighting the AAMC’s embrace of DEI and leftist politics, was skeptical of the rebrand.

“The AAMC’s rebranding of DEI doesn’t fool anyone; even the CEO said its ‘mission and vision aren’t changing.’ If we are to restore integrity to medical education, then schools need to think twice before pledging allegiance to the AAMC,” Goldfarb said.

Do No Harm’s push against politics in medicine has been joined by other doctors who want to get back to focusing on scientific medicine. Dr. Charles Lockwood, the executive vice president and dean of the University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine, recently published a viewpoint in the American Journal of Medicine lambasting the inclusion of politics in medicine.

Lockwood told The Daily Wire that he was inspired to write the article because of the AAMC’s embrace of so-called “gender-affirming care” for kids.

“It is shocking to me that this would be embraced, embraced with such passion, when, again, no evidence of benefit, no evidence to reduce the rate of suicide, no evidence of mental health improvements, no evidence that we are actually treating gender dysphoria, and many cases where there’s tremendous regret and detransitioning, which is difficult to do,” Lockwood said.

He said he thought most rank-and-file doctors opposed gender procedures in schools, but that leadership at the organizations was pushing it for political reasons.

“We need to move medicine out of harm’s way, and out of the political debate and back to empiricism and the embrace of scientific method of evidence based medicine back to self correction, which it clearly is departed from,” Lockwood said. “When we do that as a profession, we’ll find that we regain the public trust.”