Our Response to the SPLC

September 10, 2025

The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine was established to promote evidence-based, ethical care for children, adolescents, and young adults with gender dysphoria. In recent years, politicized attacks on organizations and individual researchers working in this field have become common, with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) 2024 “hate group” designation representing one of the most notorious examples. Until now, we have not felt a need to respond, as most professionals recognized these attacks as politically-motivated efforts to shut down scientific scrutiny of youth gender medicine. However, these old claims have recently gained new traction and begun to personally affect researchers who have partnered with SEGM. It is out of concern for the ethical and brave individuals who have decided to prioritize the health and wellbeing of young people despite professional and personal risks that SEGM has finally chosen to address the SPLC's allegations publicly.

The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) formed in 2019 in response to concerns that a rapidly growing group of vulnerable youth with increasingly diverse presentations of gender dysphoria were being subjected to a highly medicalized treatment protocol never designed for them—and never shown to be safe or effective. SEGM called out the fact that youth gender medicine has been exceptionalized in ways that threaten young people’s safety and compromise care quality.

Since our founding, our work has brought scientific rigor to youth gender medicine and facilitated evidence-informed discussions among professionals who hold diverse perspectives about how best to support this population. We were one of the first professional groups to point out that all young people with gender dysphoria deserve treatment informed by systematic reviews of evidence, which were sorely lacking in the field at the time of our inception. We commissioned such reviews from a team of evidence appraisal experts, and three of the systematic reviews—into the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mastectomy—have since been published in highly respected peer-reviewed medical journals. Individual researchers who collaborate with SEGM also published in peer-reviewed journals, identifying serious problems in the foundational studies that lead to the proliferation of youth gender transitions world-wide, problems with obtaining informed consent due to incomplete information and even misinformation about the practice, and pointing out that the assertions of low regret and detransition rates, asserted by the proponents of youth transitions are, in fact, highly questionable. These researchers reminded the medical community of historical examples when medicine did not serve patients well. We also consistently objected to the politicization of this issue, warning that if the field of youth gender medicine does not self-correct, regulators will inevitably step in and regulate in much less nuanced ways than what could be achieved through self-regulation.

Various reputable sources have acknowledged our important work in the field of youth gender medicine. A New York Times article described SEGM as “one of the most reliable nonpartisan organizations dedicated to the field.” The British Medical Journal described SEGM as “a group of researchers and clinicians that has pushed for systematic reviews and an evidence-based approach.” MIT’s Undark magazine noted that SEGM has been recognized as a credible and vital voice in the debate on how best to care for gender-variant youth—a sentiment endorsed by outlets like The Economist, The Telegraph, and Medscape Medical News.

In late 2023, the SPLC appears to have noticed that a number of scientific voices raising concerns about the state of youth gender medicine have intersected with SEGM's work. The SPLC named SEGM "the hub" of scientific scrutiny of the field, but accused us of engaging in “pseudoscience” and of “manufacturing doubt.” By early 2024, the SPLC used these allegations to put SEGM on its "hate map." These allegations initially surprised us. Our president and many of our collaborators are members of the LGBTQ community, and SEGM as an organization has taken great care to avoid wading into political debates, seeking only to enable evidence-based decision-making about care for gender-dysphoric youth, without prescribing specific policy solutions. 

Upon examining the SPLC report backing up the “hate group” designation, we found that the SPLC provided no evidence to support its own definition of "anti-LGBTQ hate,” which includes “crude name-calling and disseminat[ing] disparaging propaganda and falsehoods” and “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” Instead, what we found was a sprawling, 150+ page report, riddled with typos, logical fallacies, and ad hominem attacks drawn from a now-defunct blog.

Nor could we find any evidence provided by the SPLC to support its assertion that SEGM engages in “pseudoscience.” According to the SPLC report, “Purveyors of pseudoscience generally rely on the fact that most people will take information for granted because they:

• Do not have the time, resources or knowledge to conduct a study of their own.
• Do not have the expertise to question the methodology used to reach a conclusion.
• Refuse to critically analyze information.
• Mistakenly trust the source.”

Rather than providing any evidence of "hate" or "pseudoscience," the SPLC report substituted labels for argument, reframed scientific disagreement as bigotry, claimed unfounded guilt by association, and leaned on a closed loop of activist sources that cite one another to simulate corroboration. In doing so, the SPLC misleads the public, trading on its reputation and hoping readers will "trust the source." 

For example, the SPLC’s allegation that SEGM was funded by the Koch Institute was demonstrated to be false by an in-depth investigative report, which revealed that the alleged “problematic funding” in fact came from a lifelong Democrat, feminist, and philanthropist. The SPLC’s assertion that “SEGM members and advisers filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling for an end to prescription puberty blockers for trans kids” is also a misrepresentation of facts. The referenced document asked the FDA to “fulfil its public health mission by commissioning a comprehensive analysis of existing studies concerning this use, by seeking new, long-term studies of this use, [and] by promoting awareness of the state of evidence concerning this use.” 

SEGM’s work raises questions about current approaches to understanding and treating youth gender dysphoria. The SPLC report mischaracterizes legitimate scientific inquiry as “manufacturing doubt,” but there is no manufacturing here—only genuine unknowns about the optimal approaches to care for this vulnerable group of young people. This is evidenced by multiple public health authorities in LGBT-friendly countries sharply restricting youth gender transitions, reclassifying gender transition of minors as an “experimental” practice and concluding that risks outweigh benefits for most youth. Anyone concerned with the wellbeing of these young people must take these concerns and real uncertainties seriously. 

While the SPLC has since corrected the spelling errors in its original 2023 report, it has refused to address the factual misrepresentations. These failures by the SPLC do not appear to be accidental. Once a highly respected civil-rights organization, in recent years the SPLC has become infamous for misusing its “hate group” designation for political and fundraising purposes. The SPLC’s misleading tactics have been widely acknowledged even among the most liberal media outlets. Politico, a left-leaning news source, described the SPLC as “becoming more of a partisan progressive hit operation than a civil rights watchdog,” and accused it of abusing “its position as an arbiter of hatred by labeling legitimate players ‘hate groups’ and ‘extremists’ to keep the attention of its liberal donors and grind a political ax.” Current Affairs’ editor-in-chief scrutinized the SPLC’s “Hate Map” and called it “an outright fraud” and “a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.”

Recently, the SPLC entered the contentious arena of youth gender medicine and became counsel to plaintiffs in several major lawsuits arguing against state-imposed age minimums on hormonal and surgical transitions. The evidence obtained in the lawsuits revealed that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)—the organization publishing prevailing guidelines—suppressed its own systematic reviews of the evidence and bemoaned the fact that SEGM is holding the field to a higher scientific standard. SPLC’s active role in a lawsuit and its promotion of WPATH’s position, which SEGM’s analyses contradicted, creates a significant conflict of interest for the SPLC.

The SPLC openly acknowledges that no “reasonable reader” would interpret its “hate group” label as anything more than a highly controversial opinion rather than a statement of fact. When defending itself against previous defamation allegations, the SPLC asserted that its hate-group designation is “highly debatable and ambiguous,” belongs to the “realm of political debate,” and “not capable of being empirically proven true or false.”

We are grateful to the numerous professionals and organizations who have seen through the SPLC’s actions as purely political and legal maneuvers. Since 2023, SEGM has received more professional support than ever before, including partnering with renowned universities to conduct research; collaborating with a major international medical association to host a series of in-depth symposia on youth gender medicine; securing accreditation for continuing medical education; and convening several international conferences that have drawn renowned speakers and practitioners from around the world. This is only a short list of our accomplishments—all undertaken with the sole mission of advancing evidence-based medicine and fostering open scientific debate within the field. 

To be clear, SEGM categorically rejects the SPLC’s allegations that we are a “hate group” peddling “pseudoscience” and “manufacturing doubt.” SEGM affirms the right of all individuals to live free from harassment and discrimination. We promote the principles of evidence-based medicine and the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice in healthcare. We reject the politicization of questioning how best to care for gender-dysphoric youth. SEGM is deeply concerned that widespread misinformation and disinformation regarding the benefits, risks, and uncertainties surrounding youth gender transition compromises autonomy, informed consent, and quality of care. 

SEGM is not a policy-making body and does not prescribe specific policy solutions. Of note, SEGM has never endorsed bans on youth gender medicine. Each society is responsible for determining the most appropriate approaches to treatment within the frameworks of its healthcare systems, legal structures, and values. Our role is to advocate that young people experiencing gender dysphoria receive the same standard of care that all youth deserve: evidence-based, ethical care that safeguards their long-term health and wellbeing.

We do not wish to demonize those who disagree with us. In fact, we believe a number of SEGM’s critics genuinely care about the wellbeing of gender-dysphoric youth, even if they do not share our concerns. These critics are valued voices and deserve respect as well. Science settles disagreements through rigorous research and vigorous debate. However, it is incumbent on all stakeholders to participate in these discussions in good faith; to disagree without promoting false narratives; and to always put the long-term health and wellbeing of vulnerable youth first.

SEGM is honored to have the trust of the many professionals and organizations who have chosen to work with us in the pursuit of our mission to promote evidence-based, ethical care for these children, adolescents, and young adults.