Joseph Zanga vs. transgender people

Joseph Zanga is an American pediatrician and anti-transgender activist. Zanga is best known as a co-founder and founding president of anti-trans hate group American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) from 2002 to 2007.

Starting in 2018, Zanga has been directly involved in anti-trans activism, publishing opinion pieces and submitting reports in legal cases.

Background

Joseph R. Zanga was born on October 30, 1944. Zanga earned a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in 1966, followed by a medical degree from Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine in 1971. Zanga completed pediatric residency at the Medical College of Virginia in 1973.

Zanga spent 19 years as an Associate Professor and later Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia.

From 1997 to 1998, Zanga was president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and is a Life Fellow.

Zanga has also served as Chair of Pediatrics at Loyola University Chicago, Vice Chair at Louisiana State University Medical Center, and Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at both LSU and Tulane University. Zanga later held the Distinguished Chair and Assistant Dean in Primary Care at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Zanga served as retired Chief of Pediatrics for Columbus Regional Health/Columbus Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Georgia.

Zanga and spouse Christine live in Sanford, North Carolina. They have two adult children.

Anti-trans activism

In 2002, Zanga and Gerry Boccarossa founded The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) after the mainstream group American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a report supporting adoption by LGBTQ people. ACPeds has gone on to be a prominent voice in anti-transgender extremism.

In 2018, Zanga’s first statement about trans healthcare for young people was published as “First Do No Harm.” It was updated and republished in the Spring 2020 AAP Senior Bulletin. In the 2018 version, Zanga called gender dysphoria “a condition which usually (90+%) cures itself by late adolescence,” adding:

“Another non-controversy is that chromosomes determine sex and they are unalterable. A child can no more make him or herself someone of the opposite sex than they could become chimpanzees. […] But children’s brains are plastic and can be molded by experience, by parents or teachers dressing them as the opposite sex, calling them an opposite sex name, and insisting that all others do the same. They become, in their brains, the sex others create for them. 

[…] Lately a number of transsexual people have spoken forcefully about the harmful physical and emotional effects of the medical and surgical procedures physicians told them were necessary. […] Yet we increasingly seem to have no qualms about accepting the decisions of a child incapable of making those decisions. We also seem to support media and political (non-medical) imperatives to accept these immature decisions.

[…] Endorsing sex reassignment for children as normal in our offices, or via the media and public policy, will inevitably lead more children to puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic/toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts – all to avoid perhaps some counseling, parental support for their genetic sex, and a period of watchful waiting. 

In 2023, Zanga submitted an expert report in Dekker v. Weida, a federal case challenging a 2022 rule adopted by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) that barred Medicaid coverage for transgender healthcare.

References

Cravens, R.G. et al (December 12, 2023). Manufacturing the doubt that fuels the network. Southern Poverty Law Center / CAPTAIN https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/disinformation/

Jones, Zinnia (May 17, 2023). The far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom offered a Florida anti-trans hate group $15,000 to “refute” the WPATH Standards of Care “for use in litigation.” Medium https://zinniajones.medium.com/the-far-right-law-firm-alliance-defending-freedom-offered-a-florida-anti-trans-hate-group-15-000-1e826248ea3

Schweers, Jeff (June 4, 2014). LGBT activists denounce Gainesville-based ‘hate group.’ The Gainesville Sun https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2014/06/04/lgbt-activists-denounce-gainesville-based-hate-group/31865907007/

Lenz, Ryan (March 1, 2012). American College of Pediatricians Defames Gays and Lesbians in the Name of Protecting Children. Southern Poverty Law Center / Intelligence Report https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/american-college-pediatricians-defames-gays-and-lesbians-name-protecting-children/

Selected writing by Zanga

Expert Report of Joseph Zanga, M.D., Dekker v. Weida, No. 4:22-cv-00325-RH-MAF (N.D. Fla. Feb. 14, 2023). https://ahca.myflorida.com/content/download/20943/file/Dekker_v_Weida_Zanga_Report.pdf original url https://www.muscogeemedical.org/Resources/369.pdf

Zanga, Joseph (June 2018). First, Do No Harm. Muscogee County Medical Society Bulletin (Vol. 63, No. 6). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64953130/142/6/dekker-v-weida/

Resources

Trans Data Library (transdatalibrary.org)

• American College of Pediatricians
• transdatalibrary.org/organization/american-college-of-pediatricians

Southern Poverty Law Center (splcenter.org)

• Hate group: American College of Pediatricians
• splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/american-college-pediatricians