Even though Wyoming is a deeply conservative state, full of sensible people who know the difference between boys and girls, transgender ideology has nevertheless reached our borders and become a divisive issue in our politics. Who is to blame for forcing these manufactured narratives on us?
Although there are many culprits, one of the most visible is the network of medical groups with Wyoming-sounding names. They present themselves as neutral, patient-centered providers, but in reality act as lobbyists for national progressive organizations.
The Wyoming chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (WY-AAP) is a textbook example of how national agendas are funneled through local groups to stifle local dissent.
Pediatrics or Politics? The AAP’s Troubling Priorities
The WY-AAP is the state affiliate of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the nation’s largest professional association of pediatricians. Despite its respectable-sounding name, the AAP is led by progressives who oppose parental rights and promote so-called ‘transgender healthcare,’ a practice many view as quack medicine.
In July 2025, the AAP announced its support for eliminating all non-medical childhood vaccine exemptions, effectively telling families that the abstract notion of ‘public health,’ the same banner used to justify a host of coercive pandemic policies, outweighs parents’ right to make medical decisions for their children.
The AAP’s hostility to parental rights might seem puzzling at first, but it all becomes clear when you look at the money. The AAP is funded by the largest pharmaceutical corporations in the world, including Pfizer and Moderna. In other words, the AAP’s stance on vaccine exemptions and its implacable support for giving babies as young as six months old the mRNA vaccines is less about medicine and more about business for its members and sponsors.
“It should come as no surprise, then, that the AAP is also one of the most vocal and influential defenders of “gender-affirming care” for what they call “transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents.” The AAP promotes the use of drugs to stop otherwise healthy kids from going through puberty and pumping them full of hormones from the opposite sex, even as the countries in Europe that pioneered so-called transgender care have begun to take a more cautious approach.
Incredibly, the AAP published an article in 2023 that even sought to portray the withholding of transgender care as a form of child maltreatment. This designation could trigger child protection investigations in some states.
This, from the nation’s largest association of pediatricians—67,000 members whose mission is supposed to be safeguarding children’s well-being.
The WY-AAP Marches In Lockstep With Its National Headquarters
If anyone believes the AAP’s state chapters reflect local values, the conduct of the WY AAP during debate over SF 99 should put that notion to rest. SF 99, known as Chloe’s Law, prohibits doctors from administering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or performing surgeries for the purposes of facilitating gender transitions. SF 99 was signed into law in March 2024.
Wyoming’s woke medical groups, including the Wyoming Medical Society (WMS) and the WY-AAP, rallied to defend transgender procedures. They lobbied, they testified, and they raised a loud outcry against the bill, fighting to preserve chemical and surgical mutilation of children.
Dr. Mike Sanderson, the Sheridan-based pediatrician and president of the WY-AAP, sat before lawmakers during testimony and lambasted supporters of the bill,accusing them of interfering in the doctor-patient relationship. Sanderson should know that if doctors are harming children in direct violation of the principle of beneficence (otherwise known as the Hippocratic Oath), then it is the responsibility of lawmakers to stop them.
Emails show WY-AAP Leadership Dismissing Opposing Views
Emails from WY AAP president, Sheridan pediatrician Dr. Mike Sanderson, reveal how doctors tied to national progressive organizations use their credentials to dismiss and marginalize conservative perspectives. The clearest example came in early 2024, during the heated debate over SF 99, in an exchange with Dr. Eric Cubin that Honor Wyoming obtained.
Cubin, a radiologist who supported the bill and served on the Wyoming Board of Medicine at the time, reached out to WMS leadership to question whether its public opposition to SF 99 truly reflected the views of its members. In his emails, Cubin diplomatically suggested the organization should refrain from taking a position on hot-button topics like transgender medicine or, at the very least, poll members to see where they stand.
Cubin goes on to point out that a different national pediatric group, the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), opposes the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries because there is no long-term evidence to support those interventions.
How did Sanderson respond to a group challenging his progressive worldview? Predictably, “[I]t is widely apparent to nearly everyone in the field of Pediatrics that the American College of Pediatricians is the politically motivated organization,” Sanderson sneers. He goes on to write, “They are not taken seriously amongst the vast majority of pediatricians.”
Well, there you have it. Sanderson’s appeal to the “vast majority of pediatricians” echoes the same rhetorical playbook progressives employed during the pandemic, when they routinely claimed that most scientists supported masking, mRNA vaccines, school and church closures, and exempting left-wing protesters from lockdown restrictions.
But this cheap appeal to consensus is not the slam dunk Sanderson thinks it is. After all, many scientists were wrong about pandemic-era public health policies and the origins of the virus. Furthermore, scientists, doctors, and public health officials actively suppressed and censored dissenting experts, making it appear as though a consensus existed when it did not.
Cubin’s Defense of Wyoming’s Children Came At A Professional Cost.
During the debate over SF 99, Cubin emailed members of the Wyoming House of Representatives, warning that WMS leadership had “been essentially hijacked by the far left” and that their opposition to SF 99 did not reflect how many WMS members feel. For this courageous act, Gov. Gordon removed Cubin from the Wyoming Board of Medicine, punishing him for expressing his personal opinions. Meanwhile, Wyoming’s most powerful medical groups remain led by people like Sanderson, who cloak themselves in the authority of ‘science’ to silence dissent while pushing an ideology that denies biological reality and runs contrary to Wyoming values.
Pay Attention to the Fruit
The fight over Chloe’s Law made one thing painfully clear: groups like the WY-AAP are not independent Wyoming voices, but conduits for national lobbying interests. Their leaders dismissed dissent, lobbied against parents, and aligned themselves with outside organizations that were more interested in advancing their ideology than protecting children.
When Wyoming parents and lawmakers raised concerns, they weren’t met with honest debate. Instead, they were waved off with appeals to authority and consensus, the same tactics that masked so many failures during the pandemic. Meanwhile, those willing to challenge the system, like Dr. Eric Cubin, paid the price for speaking out.
This pattern should remind us to look beyond the branding and rhetoric. A local-sounding name does not guarantee local values. The real test is the fruit. And when we look at the fruit of the WY-AAP (the lobbying, the dismissal of parental rights, the allegiance to pharmaceutical dollars and progressive ideology….)it’s plain enough: what they’re offering Wyoming families is rotten.