American Medical Association and the History of Medical Control Over Sex and Gender

When the American Medical Association, the influential professional organization that set medical standards in the U.S. since 1847. Also known as the AMA, it took control of defining what was "normal" in human sexuality, it didn’t just diagnose disease—it decided who was healthy, who was deviant, and who needed to be fixed. For more than a hundred years, the AMA held the power to label masturbation as a cause of insanity, pathologize same-sex desire as mental illness, and authorize non-consensual surgeries on intersex infants—all under the guise of science. This wasn’t just medicine. It was social engineering dressed in white coats.

The AMA didn’t invent shame around sex, but it gave it authority. In the 1800s, doctors like William Acton, backed by AMA-endorsed textbooks, claimed women who enjoyed sex were sick. Meanwhile, Havelock Ellis, who challenged those views, was pushed to the margins. The AMA’s influence meant that even basic facts about the body were twisted to fit moral agendas. Female orgasm? A myth unless it came from penetration. Transgender people? Classified as psychotic until the 1970s. Masturbation? A dangerous habit that caused blindness and weakness. These weren’t opinions. They were medical doctrine, taught in every U.S. medical school. And when the AMA changed its stance—like removing homosexuality from the DSM in 1973—it wasn’t because of activism alone. It was because the science finally caught up to the truth that had been buried for decades.

The legacy of the AMA’s past still lives in today’s healthcare gaps. When doctors demand proof of gender identity before approving care, or when insurance denies coverage for basic sexual health services, it’s not just bureaucracy—it’s the ghost of Victorian medicine still pulling strings. The fight for consent in modern transgender healthcare, the push to end non-consensual intersex surgeries, and the battle to remove shame from masturbation all trace back to decisions made in AMA boardrooms over a century ago. What’s changed isn’t just the rules—it’s who gets to speak. Patients, activists, and researchers are now rewriting the narrative, forcing medicine to catch up to real human experience.

Below, you’ll find articles that dig into these exact battles—the forgotten histories, the medical myths, and the quiet revolutions that forced the American Medical Association to, slowly, change its mind. These aren’t just stories about the past. They’re the foundation of the rights we’re still fighting for today.