Members of the American College of Pediatricians, also known as ACPeds, and other medical professionals will announce their signing of the “Doctors Protecting Children Declaration” on Thursday during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, The Daily Signal has learned.

“As physicians, nurses, other health professionals, psychotherapists, and behavioral health clinicians, scientists, researchers, and public health and policy professionals, we have serious concerns about the physical and mental health effects of the current protocols promoted for the care of children and adolescents in the United States who express discomfort with their biological sex,” the declaration states.

It is co-signed by medical and health organizations including the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Genspect, the American College of Family Medicine, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Catholic Medical Association, and many individual doctors, pediatricians, and nurses.

The document emphasizes that most children and adults whose “thoughts and feelings do not align with their biological sex will resolve those mental incongruencies after experiencing the normal developmental process of puberty.”

It also notes that the young children who are going through attempted “gender-transition” procedures cannot really give “responsible informed consent” due to the “extremely limited long-term follow-up studies of interventions, and the immature, often impulsive, nature of the adolescent brain.”

Notably, the declaration points out that the many ”gender clinics” in the U.S. are basing their transgender protocols on the “Standards of Care” developed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, which was recently exposed for hiding the dangerous and experimental nature of these procedures. The declaration points out that the very foundation of WPATH’s guidelines is “demonstrably flawed, and pediatric patients can be harmed when subjected to those protocols.”

The declaration also highlights the very serious long-term risks of so-called gender-affirming care, including when doctors or medical professionals ”socially transition” children (by referring to kids with pronouns or names that don’t match their biological sex), put them on puberty blockers, prescribe them masculinizing or feminizing hormones such as testosterone or estrogen, or perform irreversible ”sex change” procedures.

Sterility is just one of these long-term risks.

Social affirmations make youth more likely to progress on to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, the declaration states.

Puberty blockers “permanently disrupt physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development” and can worsen psychological illness, cause low bone density, impair memory, lead to brain swelling, and more.

Cross sex-hormones, such as testosterone for girls and estrogen for boys, are “associated with dangerous health risks across the lifespan including, but not limited to, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, heart attacks, blood clots, stroke, diabetes, and cancer,” the declaration continues.

And genital surgeries, perhaps most obviously, affect “future fertility and reproduction.”

“Evidence-based medical research now demonstrates there is little to no benefit from any or all suggested ‘gender affirming’ interventions for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria,” the document says. “Social ‘affirmation,’ puberty blockers, masculinizing or feminizing hormones, and surgeries, individually or in combination, do not appear to improve long-term mental health of the adolescents, including suicide risk.”

The document also emphasizes that European countries like England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland have all paused such protocols given the evidence demonstrating that social, hormonal, and surgical interventions are “not only unhelpful but are harmful.”

Yet professional medical organizations in the U.S. continue to promote these interventions and call legislation protecting children from so-called transgender procedures “dangerous.”

The signers call upon top medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and others to “follow the science and their European professional colleagues and immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex.”

“Instead,” the declaration says, “these organizations should recommend comprehensive evaluations and therapies aimed at identifying and addressing underlying psychological comorbidities and neurodiversity that often predispose to and accompany gender dysphoria. We also encourage the physicians who are members of these professional organizations to contact their leadership and urge them to adhere to the evidence-based research now available.”