Hat tip to Pharyngula - The American COLLEGE of Pediatricians is bogus, the American ACADEMY of Pediatrics is a legitimate professional scientific org.

In writing earlier today about the hatred on the right for anything related to sex, gender and human sexuality, the following is worth sharing from Pharyngula.  It deals directly with the right wing attempt to fake they are an accredited genuinely scientific group, when their real purpose is to promote false information about children specifically and the LGBT community more generally.

We can expect to see sources like the bogus American COLLEGE of Pediatricians quoted in the upcoming anti-trans bathroom use legislation promoted by the intellectually dishonest MN GOP.  Lying is for losers, and it is what the MN GOP does when the facts are not on their side; they fake the facts and they lie outright.  They are not above using the work of bogus groups to do so.

For those of you not familiar with Pharyngula, they are a well-respected Minnesota blog that does an excellent job of science reporting and commentary.

From Pharyngula:

Speaking of bad science, never trust the American College of Pediatricians

I know! It sounds so official and sciencey! It’s got “college” in it, which is formal and academic, and “pediatricians”, which are a kind of doctor, and you can never go wrong slapping “American” on your brand label. But they are a lie.

It’s also because the ACP is not a legitimate medical organization; its name is designed to be mistaken for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a national organization with some 60,000 members. The ACP, by contrast, is estimated to have no more than 200 members, and it has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBT positions.
“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex,” the statement reads. “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.” The “facts” that follow actually reflect a social conservative ideology that rejects the very reality of what transgender children experience.

They’ve issued a statement that transgender kids are being harmed, based on claims that believing you are of a gender other than the one you were born with is a mental disorder (psychologists disagree), that it’s just a phase kids go through (nope, again — that’s based on some bad studies), and that sex reassignment surgery, rather than discrimination and hatred, triggers suicide at a high rate (you can figure that one out).
I’m all in favor of facts. Unfortunately, painting the word “fact” on a lie does not make it true.