Julia Mason
This content was last updated Oct. 3, 2023, 9:05 p.m. UTC
Julia Mason is an American pediatrician who opposes some of the mainstream consensus on gender-affirming care but does not support full bans on gender-affirming care. She is a member of the anti-trans Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), and is best known for co-authoring a Wall Street Journal article alongside Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir attacking the American Academy of Pediatricians’ (AAP) approval of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
Something I hadn't mentioned about my 'peaking,' when I turned on this whole idea, the first red flag was when everybody—from a pediatric endocrinologist to a trans woman who ran a youth group for kids—told me that 99% of kids put on puberty blockers would go on to the rest of the process... and I'm like, 99% of 12-year-olds can't hold on to what they're gonna be for Halloween.
Education and Work
According to LinkedIn Mason earned her Bachelor of Sciences degree in Biology from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1987. She earned her Master of Sciences degree in Nutrition Sciences from the same school in 1993, as well as her Doctor of Medicine from University of Illinois College of Medicine.
She completed her residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 1997. She is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics, and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Mason worked in San Francisco until 2000, when she moved to Wisconsin to work at Bellin Community Hospital. In 2002 she began working at Fort Medical Group, then in 2009 she began working at Meriter Medical Group. In 2013, she relocated to Oregon and began working at Calcagno Pediatrics. In her work as a pediatrician she has treated some gender dysphoric youth.
AAP Resolutions
Mason has introduced three resolutions at the AAP Annual Leadership Forum, each to demand that AAP leadership reevaluate their stance on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, citing “concern about the low quality of evidence underpinning treatment of minors with hormones and surgeries.”
AAP Resolution 31, filed in 2021, received no support. AAP Resolution 27, filed in 2022, was submitted with four coauthors. Mason claims that AAP Resolution 37, filed in 2023, has 23 coauthors. The organization has over 67,000 members.
WSJ Article
In August of 2022, Mason coauthored an article in Wall Street Journal with Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir questioning the methodology of a study published in AAP’s journal, Pediatrics, that supported the affirming model of care for transgender patients. Mason and Sapir also claim that Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom have placed “severe restrictions on medical transition for minors.”
Moira Szilagyi, president of the AAP, published a response in Wall Street Journal to Mason and Sapir’s article. Szilagyi expresses that the gender-affirming care model “destigmatizes gender variance” and promotes children’s self-worth, stating that affirming care does not “push medical treatment or surgeries” on children. Szilagyi also denies that any European country has categorically banned gender-affirming care when medically necessary.
Other Writing and Affiliations
Mason has also written about her concerns over the mainstream treatment of gender dysphoria, including recollections of experiences treating gender dysphoria in youth.
Mason has co-authored papers opposing gender-affirming care in various journals, such as The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, and Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.
Mason is a member of anti-trans group SEGM, founded by Irish conversion therapist and activist Stella O’Malley. When SEGM was denied a booth at the 2021 AAP National Conference, Mason wrote a letter protesting the decision.
Mason is a member of anti-transgender think tank Genspect, where she has written one article about puberty blockers. She regularly supports their work on social media, as well as the work of anti-transgender radical feminist blog and forum 4thWaveNow. On Genspect’s podcast Gender: A Wider Lens Mason discussed her relationship with Azeen Ghorayshi of the New York Times, saying she speaks with Ghorayshi regularly on background although she cannot be quoted by the reporter because her views are too extreme.
Mason is a regular interviewee on anti-transgender podcasts such as True Thirty, Calmversations, The Megyn Kelly Show, and Heterodorx, in which the hosts greet their audience with anti-transgender slurs at the start of each episode.