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Detransitioners, activists claim they were removed from event for opposing ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors

The largest pediatricians’ association in the U.S. removed Chloe Cole and other detransitioners from a conference this weekend where they were sharing their experiences with medical professionals.

The American Academy of Pediatrics booted members of the Alliance for Mental Health, an organization that advocates for “mental health over medical treatments” for individuals with gender dysphoria, from the event in Orlando, Florida, according to The Daily Wire.

The AAP’s website states its mission is to “attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults.”

The members included detransitioners Chloe Cole, Abel Garcia, Soren Aldaco, and Nicholas Flowers, as well as activists Erin Friday and January Littlejohn.

The group invested more than $25,000 on a booth to engage directly with conference attendees. Garcia told the Daily Wire they were making progress until they were expelled from the conference on the third day.

The AAP sent a security guard to tell the group that one of its members violated “the code of conduct last year.” The guard instructed them to “leave the event immediately,” according to video footage from the Daily Wire.

However, security would not identify the individual or disclose the violation.

“They don’t want detransitioners here at the AAP,” Littlejohn told 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,” she said.

Littlejohn, who describes herself as “a mom fighting to protect children and families from the harms of gender ideology,” also said it’s “time that the AAP acknowledge the harm that’s occurring.”

She believes her group was removed due to its opposition to “gender-affirming care,” including transgender surgeries, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers for minors, according to the Daily Wire.

“Why is the AAP preventing doctors from hearing these stories?” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh wrote on X.

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

“Today it has become clear that the AAP exists to keep patients muzzled, and well meaning practitioners in the dark,” activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole wrote on X.

“I will do my best to be back next year, despite their best efforts,” she wrote.

In another post, Cole stated that most of the practitioners and attendees the group spoke to “were both curious and grateful to hear about [their] perspective.”

“The AAP leadership’s ultimate goal in kicking us out is to make it more difficult for doctors to do the right thing, to obtain the truth. Their goal is money and power, at the cost of the lives of children,” she wrote.

Cole, who began hormone treatments at 13 and underwent a double mastectomy at 15, is now a vocal advocate against gender transitions for minors.

MORE: ‘Gender-affirming therapy’ is not beneficial, pediatrics group concludes

IMAGE: Matt Walsh/Twitter

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