Michael Artigues
This content was last updated Nov. 17, 2023, 9:26 p.m. UTC
Michael Artigues is a pediatrician, anti-transgender activist, and the current president of anti-transgender activist organization the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), not to be confused with preeminent pediatricians’ professional association the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The studies that they're basing treatment on right now are extremely flimsy, and really don't reach the standards of care that we're used to in medicine ... we know that with some of the medications and certainly surgeries that are performed, we're talking about life altering conditions, we're talking about permanent sterilization ... we don't have enough evidence to continue to move forward in that direction with anything other than intensive mental health for these patients.
Education and Credentials
Artigues received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University (1988) and his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Mississippi Medical School (1992), where he also completed his pediatrics residency in 1995. He has practiced general pediatrics at the McComb Children’s Clinic in McComb, Mississippi, since 1995.
Artigues served on ACPeds’ board of directors starting in 2014, serving as the organization’s vice president until becoming president of the organization in 2023.
Activism
Artigues has expressed in multiple ACPeds press statements, in his capacity as the organization’s vice president at the time, that human sex is an immutable binary. He has stated that “males are different from females at the cellular level from fertilization,” and that he believes this is important because “genetics and sex hormones affect the tendency to develop certain diseases, alter responses to drugs, toxins and pain, and also cause important physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral differences between the two sexes.”
Artigues has argued in favor of conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people, citing the work of conversion therapist Joseph Nicolosi, who he describes as “respected,” in spite of widespread controversy surrounding his work. He describes the sexuality of people with “unwanted same-sex attraction” as “more fluid than originally thought,” despite extensive research that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity can be safely influenced by psychotherapy, and countless bans on the practice that have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Artigues was quoted in a 2022 lawsuit to prevent the prescribing and sale of mifeprestone, a commonly prescribed abortifacient, as part of an ACPeds partnership with the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM). AHM filed articles of incorporations only three months before the lawsuit and has direct ties to Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom.
In February of 2023, Artigues was published in Mississippi news outlet the Magnolia Tribune. In his article, Artigues argues that the medical treatments prescribed to trans people such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are dangerous to their health, despite evidence that these treatments are extremely low-risk.