Overview

• The Justice Department has subpoenaed nearly 20 clinics, physicians and drug manufacturers for gender-affirming treatments for minors amid investigations into healthcare fraud, false statements and potential drug-marketing violations.
• The Federal Trade Commission held a daylong workshop on the risks of gender-affirming care for children and plans to issue a public request for information to inform possible enforcement under its consumer-protection authority.
• Investigators are focusing on claims that medical providers misrepresented benefits of puberty blockers and hormone therapies and failed to disclose risks, which could constitute deceptive marketing under the FTC Act and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
• Administration officials are drafting legislation with Congress to apply existing female genital mutilation statutes more robustly to gender-affirming medical procedures for youth.
• These federal actions follow last month’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Tennessee’s ban and the enactment of similar youth-care restrictions in 27 states, even as leading medical associations affirm gender-affirming treatments as evidence-based.