Craig Konnoth is a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. His research covers health law, civil rights and health data regulation. He previously was a deputy solicitor general in the California Department of Justice and an associate professor at the University of Colorado, where he ran the Health Law Certificate Program.
DI has documented statements by Craig Konnoth on Health Care, Political Violence, and Scientific Research. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.
Role at the time: Professor of Law, University of Virginia
Condemned
Statement summary
Law professor Craig Konnoth argued the HHS report's logic, applied to medical associations like the APA and AAP, would make "any medical recommendation" appear "authoritarian."
“By that standard, any medical recommendation becomes 'authoritarian'.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)‘Nakedly political’: US attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new health department reportPublished September 7, 2026; updated September 8, 2026; comments from Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Daniel Aaron, Craig Konnoth and Colin Wright
Why we used this label
Konnoth condemns the report's underlying logic, arguing it would delegitimize any mainstream medical body's recommendations as 'authoritarian.'
An HHS survey report linked selected gender-affirmation beliefs with higher authoritarianism scores and stated political-violence justification. Its authors say it does not establish causation or measure violence; critics dispute its measures and broader framing.
