By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) -Some staff members at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have raised concerns about a planned workshop by the agency on what it calls the dangers of gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, saying it oversteps the FTC’s consumer-protection authority, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The workshop “would chart new territory for the Commission by prying into confidential doctor-patient consultations,” the group of staff wrote in an anonymous statement of concern sent to members of Congress.
“Simply put, in our judgment, this is not the FTC’s lane,” they said.
The workshop is part of a larger campaign to curtail trans rights during President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump issued orders in his first days in office stating the U.S. government does not recognize gender identity apart from “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female” and cutting funding for gender-affirming care for youth. That policy faces a court challenge.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, a Republican who was appointed to the Commission by former President Joe Biden and named its chair by Trump in January, has sought to use the FTC’s antitrust and consumer-protection authority to tackle conservative issues, such as perceived online censorship.
Gender transition treatments, often called gender-affirming care, can include puberty-blocking drugs, hormones and sometimes surgery. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said that gender-affirming care can improve mental health for minors with gender dysphoria, and the organization opposed policymakers interfering in the doctor-patient relationship. Conservative lawmakers in 25 states have passed laws restricting minors from receiving the treatments.
The FTC has broad consumer-protection authority to bring enforcement actions against unfair or deceptive business practices. In announcing the workshop, the FTC said that authority could apply if “medical professionals or others omitted warnings about the risks or made false or unsupported claims about the benefits and effectiveness of gender-affirming care for minors.”
The theory would intrude on the doctor-patient relationship and risk politicizing the agency’s work, the letter said. The letter called on Ferguson to cancel the event, or alternatively to open a 60-day public comment period for the commission to hear a broader range of views.
FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson said in a statement that “staff who oppose a workshop designed to better understand the concerns of tens of millions of parents, children, and medical professionals are free to resign.”
“No sane person could endorse the needless mutilation of children. Every American should be troubled by the possibility that parents and their children were misled about the use of medical ‘therapies’ that may have caused serious harm,” he said.
The staff letter also raised concerns that the workshop created a hostile work environment for the agency’s LGBTQ employees, given the views expressed by some of the invited speakers.
“It is unacceptable to subject our LGBTQ+ colleagues—in their place of work—to individuals who deny their existence and disrespect their humanity,” the staff wrote.
Staff who signed the letter did so anonymously for fear of retaliation, while some others opposed the effort out of concern that even an anonymous letter would trigger reprisals, according to sources familiar with the effort.
Biden urged the FTC in 2022 to use its consumer-protection authority to review whether “conversion therapy,” intended to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, could be considered an unfair or deceptive business practice. The FTC, then led by Lina Khan, did not take any public action.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Additional repoting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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