Clinicians using governing authority to make public health policy are ethically obliged to draw upon scientific and clinical information that accords professional standards.

When regulatory decisions express overconfidence, one risk is that the costliness or misinformation will exacerbate health inequity.

Spread of health misinformation by health professionals who also hold government positions represents a long-standing problem exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Misinformation is an urgent new problem, so health professions communities need solutions as much as they need to be wary of ethical pitfalls of rushed interventions.

This commentary on a case considers a transgender patient’s mental health and risk for DVT in ethical decision making about feminizing gender-affirming hormone therapy.

Tension between realistic goals and unrealistic views about how to achieve them is compounded when patients are eager to revise a prior surgeon’s gender-affirming procedure.

Body mass index cutoffs are routinely used to assess eligibility for gender-affirming surgeries, yet they are not empirically based.

This article canvasses states’ legal prohibitions and challenges to them and considers consequences for clinicians and patients.

PROM data can contribute to evidence-based, shared decision making and just access to gender-affirming surgical care.

Trust is a social condition that positions science to beneficially contribute to democratic societies.