Top Medical Journal’s Publishes Op-Ed Against Parents Rights To Stop Child Sex Changes
A prestigious medical journal published an opinion piece that claimed giving parents’ the right to make their child’s healthcare decisions is a threat to physicians providing care. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) — arguably one of the most affluent publications in the world — published an opinion article on Oct. 12, written […]
Libby Bandelin·Oct 21, 2026·5 min read
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A prestigious medical journal published an opinion piece that claimed giving parents’ the right to make their child’s healthcare decisions is a threat to physicians providing care.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) — arguably one of the most affluent publications in the world — published an opinion article on Oct. 12, written by two health service academics who argued that parents making healthcare decisions for their children — such as preventing them from getting sex-change surgery — threatens a child’s access to care and a physician’s ability to provide it.
“Through contemporary moves at the state level, parents’ rights policy is becoming increasingly unbounded: what seemingly started in education is spreading into health care in ways that can compromise quality and outcomes,” the op-ed titled: “When Parents Rights Lead To Policy Wrongs,” read. “Such policy is a barrier to acceptable care,” the opinion piece published in JAMA said. “As teens are seeking primary care that is welcoming, respectful, and nonjudgmental.”
The list of “concerns” the researchers articulated in the piece included: parents seeking to make decisions about their children’s vaccination rates, sexual health and HIV/AIDs treatments, expressions of gender and sexuality, mental health, and substance abuse disorders.
JAMA is the flagship journal of the American Medical Association and ranked number four out of 336 global medical journals categorized by a 2026 impact factor study. JAMA is also a highly selective publication — accepting only four percent of all submissions, the factor report also found.
“That JAMA allows commentary on their official page to take such a radical and unscientific position is highly concerning,” Ian Kingsbury, Researcher and Director of the Center for Accountability In Medicine at Do No Harm — a policy organization opposing child sex changes — told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There is no evidence to support transgender inventions on minors, including social transition. JAMA publishing this commentary shows how captured by transgender activists much of the medical establishment is. JAMA should drop the fringe ideologues and focus on high-quality, evidence-based science.”
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The two academics who authored the opinion also have a collective history of millions of dollars in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research studies, according to the NIH’s project reporter web page.
The op-ed’s corresponding author, Dr. Denise Lillvis, received over $159,000 in grant-money from the NIH for leading a project in 2024. Her co-author, Dr. Anna Kirkland has a total of $2,076,235 in project funding from the NIH, CDC and FDA listed on the NIH’s website for three projects she led between 2024-2026.
In 2021, Kirkland voiced her recommendation that the COVID-19 vaccine be a mandatory requirement across all three University of Michigan campuses, a recorded interview from Civic Center TV shows.
At the bottom of the recently published opinion article that JAMA ran, Lillvis notes “reported grants from the National Institutes of Health” in a conflict of interest disclosure.
However, when the DCNF asked about the reported grant-funding, the NIH adamantly denied providing money towards the publication of the opinion.
“The authors did not receive NIH funding to write this opinion article. The authors are not NIH employees, and the views expressed in the article are their own,” a spokesperson from the NIH said in a statement to the DCNF. “NIH is committed to ensuring federal funding supports rigorous research that advances public health.”
Non-government entities funded by NIH may engage in a range of policy-related activities, according to the official Lobbying Guidance for Recipient Activities guideline for NIH granting and funding.
“These non-governmental entities do not have recognized executive- legislative relationships, and their allowable activities using Federal funds are therefore more constrained than state and local government recipients,” the guideline said.
When asked for comment JAMA directed the DCNF to contact Lillvis, who did not respond to request for comment. Kirkland also did not provide a comment from the DCNF before publication.
Lillvis and Kirkland articulated their recommendation in their opinion that physicians should oppose recent laws that stand for parent’s rights to their children’s healthcare, “because youth are better off with more pathways open to access care and confide in supportive adults.”
A piece of legislation that the opinion particularly took grievance with is Idaho House Bill 822 or the “Pediatric Secretive Transitions Parental Rights Act” — which Republican Gov. Brad Little signed into law in July.
“Parents have a fundamental right to raise their children and make medical and educational decisions on their behalf; Medical and social sex transitions can inflict severe and irreversible harm to a child’s well-being,” the act says.
The new Idaho bill requires educators and clinicians to notify parents of their child “adopting a name, pronouns, appearance, or dress that does not correspond to the individual’s sex.”
“With the passage of the Idaho law and other legislative efforts, including recent proposals in Florida, access to care and ensuing formation and maintenance of a caring physician-patient relationship is now in jeopardy for adolescents,” the op-ed stated. “If a parent controls physician access, the parent functionally controls the appointment, the transportation, the timing, the payment, and what can be discussed. These barriers can be significant even if the teen feels comfortable initiating a request for care, but become insurmountable if the teen desires privacy over parent involvement.”
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