The Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) is a non-profit organization that is known for its opposition to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and for engaging in political lobbying.
[14] Psychiatrist Stephen B. Levine, who has testified in nearly every case on gender-affirming care in the United States and argues transgender people are pathologically narcissistic, is an advisor.
[2] A report by seven people in various departments of the Yale School of Medicine stated that the 14 core members of SEGM regularly worked together on the boards of other organizations that oppose gender-affirming healthcare and "feature biased and unscientific content.
[14][16][17] Yale University's Integrity Project estimated that 75% of SEGM's publications are letters to the editor and comments, as opposed to peer reviewed scientific articles.
[4] Lambda Legal and Cooley LLP filed an amicus brief opposing the ban on behalf of LGBT advocacy organizations such as PFLAG.
[21][22] In April, the Florida Department of Health wrote a memo which misrepresented the scientific consensus to stop minors in the state from socially or medically transitioning and cited Malone.
[2] In September 2023, SEGM members and advisors filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration calling for them to end prescriptions of puberty blockers to transgender youth.
[5] The Trans Safety Network stated "SEGM's public members include ... outspoken critics of regulation against conversion therapy on transgender people.
[4] In Texas, reports from SEGM were used to justify the Governor's directive that the state department of family and protective services investigate the parents of all children accessing gender-affirming care and treat the cases as child abuse.
[10] In 2023, US lawyer and transgender rights activist Alejandra Caraballo described SEGM as "the most prominent of the pseudo-scientific organizations in the anti-trans space" and stated they use "teach the controversy" tactics and cite the results of their advocacy efforts in the United Kingdom NHS and Swedish Karolinska Hospital to build momentum to restrict care for trans youth globally.
"[30] In March 2024, a paper examining the scientists, clinicians, and political organizations that promote bans on gender-affirming care described SEGM as a "fringe medical association".
[13] In March 2022, SEGM funded a paper by Stephen Levine, Zhenya Abbruzzese, and Julia Mason titled "Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults"[32] which appeared in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
[36] In a further reply in 2023, Levine, Abbruzzese and Mason criticised Drescher's commentary for referencing "an anonymous libelous blog" and making "baseless insinuations by inventing a non-existent association between SEGM and anti-homosexual groups".
[4][7] Referring to 2019 statements from Malone that "No child is born in the wrong body, but for a variety of reasons some children and adolescents become convinced that they were" in a Christian Post interview, and that "counseling can resolve any trauma or thought processes that have caused them to desire an opposite sexed body" in a Quillette article with fellow SEGM member Colin Wright, Eckert opined that the statements were "transphobic and reductive" and favor a model where children are encouraged to live as their sex assigned at birth.
[4][38] Kaiser Health News while fact checking a political campaign ad by America First Legal, said the leaders of SEGM are "wholly skeptical of the acceleration in gender-affirming care".