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FTC Probes American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH Over Gender-Transition Procedures for Minors

Transgender rights supporters and opponent rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview.

The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection arm has launched official probes into the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health over their continued support for gender transition procedures for minors.

“The @AmerAcadPeds and @WPATH have driven the biggest medical scandal of our time, pushing irreversible interventions on children without the evidence to back them up,” cheered pro-detransitioner organization Genspect. “The @FTC investigation is a necessary step toward holding them accountable.”

The FTC began investigating the issue in earnest last summer, shortly after the Trump administration’s FTC Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson was sworn in to his post on April 2, 2025.

On July 9, the FTC hosted a workshop on “The Dangers of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors,” focusing on “unfair or deceptive trade practices.”

On July 28, the FTC announced a public Request for Information seeking “to evaluate whether consumers (in particular, minors) have been harmed and whether medical professionals or others may have violated Sections 5 and 12 of the FTC Act by failing to disclose material risks associated with ‘gender-affirming care’ or making false or unsubstantiated claims about the benefits or effectiveness of ‘gender-affirming care.’”

By Jan. 15, 2026, the FTC inquiry had advanced to the point that it demanded documents from the AAP and WPATH, clarifying its claims related to gender transition procedures on minors, according to Bloomberg.

Both organizations have published clinical guidance on gender-transition procedures for minors, and WPATH infamously changed its guidance after political pressure from the Biden administration Department of Health and Human Services.

Bloomberg’s reporting did not say whether the FTC had sent Civil Investigative Demands to any other professional medical organizations. By publishing time, the FTC had not responded to a request for comment.

However, a letter on a separate controversy published earlier this month suggests that the FTC inquiry expanded beyond these two organizations. “Over the past several weeks, ASPS [the American Society of Plastic Surgeons], along with a small number of other national medical societies, has been participating in an urgent, time-limited process initiated by a federal agency seeking clarification of medical society positions on this topic.”

So Michael Costelloe, executive vice president of ASPS, informed the ASPS Gender Surgery Task Force on Feb. 2. That comment was cited in an open letter signed by seven members of the Task Force to the ASPS Board, which Dr. Scott Leibowitz published on LinkedIn last Tuesday. Leibowitz is a prominent member of WPATH and one of the Task Force members who signed the letter.

The open letter, spearheaded by Dr. Jens Berli, responded to a position statement issued by the plastic surgeon board on Feb. 3, which recommended “that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.”

The ASPS issued the statement one day after a New York detransitioner won a $2 million malpractice verdict against a psychologist and a plastic surgeon who rushed her into a double mastectomy at the age of 16.

While the open letter did not object to the content of the ASPS position statement, it did raise questions about its method. “Task Force members were unaware that a separate ASPS position statement addressing adolescent gender surgical care was developed outside of the Task Force. … To date, the Task Force is unaware of the statement’s authors and what methodology was used to arrive at the statement’s position,” the signatories wrote. They were also unclear whether the statement had been prepared over the “past several weeks,” per Costelloe’s statement, or whether it was first drafted in 2024.

The publication of the letter generated more drama when one signatory, Dr. Steven Montante, sought to withdraw his signature. Montante objected to being publicly associated with advocates of providing gender transition surgeries to minors, as he thinks the ASPS should set the minimum age for such surgeries at 25, according to a separate letter he sent to the Board.

Relying on news reports, the open letter did identify one author of the ASPS Board position statement as Dr. Scot Glasberg, a past ASPS president and co-chair of the Gender Surgery Task Force.

“These conversations are very difficult,” Glasberg said, in comments that explain why the Task Force’s own work had progressed so slowly. “There are many different opinions around this issue. And so, it’s very difficult to come to consensus, as you can imagine.”

According to Glasberg, the ASPS Board is the only entity with authority to release a position statement for the organization. However, the statement it did release expressed openness to future modification based on changing evidence—should the Task Force ever settle on its own position.

Glasberg kept the Board informed of the Task Force’s activities, but he did not inform the Task Force of the Board’s separate effort to craft a policy statement. When asked for comment, the ASPS Board said the open letter was “based on a series of misunderstandings, which ASPS is in the process of clarifying for its members.”

The ASPS drama serves to reveal a third factor behind the organization’s decision to release a position statement against gender surgeries for minors and the timing of that decision.

First, an increasingly clear picture of scientific evidence against the procedures provided a scientific rationale for the position.

Second, the recent detransitioner verdict provided a strong financial incentive.

Third, government scrutiny from the FTC raised the prospect of legal jeopardy for organizations who continued to support gender procedures for minors, without evidence to back them up.

In the midst of its probe into the AAP and WPATH, the FTC bolstered its consumer protection team by hiring Glenna Goldis, a left-wing, lesbian lawyer fired by the New York attorney general’s office for raising consumer protection concerns over gender transition procedures for minors.

According to The Daily Wire, which broke the news, Goldis “will spearhead investigations into any potential harms from so-called ‘gender affirming care.’”

Meanwhile, the AAP and WPATH are trying to avoid turning over any documents to the FTC as part of the probe. On Feb. 9, WPATH filed a motion to quash the Civil Investigative Demand “because the FTC lacks authority to issue investigative demands against nonprofits like WPATH, because this investigation violates WPATH’s constitutional rights, and because the [Civil Investigative Demand] is overly broad, unduly burdensome, vague, and ambiguous.”

On the same day, the AAP likewise filed a motion to quash the [Civil Investigative Demand] “because it: (1) exceeds the scope of the Commission’s authority to investigate; (2) violates the First Amendment; (3) was not issued pursuant to a Commission Resolution; and (4) is overbroad and unduly burdensome.”

According to Bloomberg, the outcome of what is now a legal battle will turn on whether the FTC can take enforcement actions against nonprofit organizations as it does against commercial businesses.

With this probe, however, the FTC under President Donald Trump has performed a complete reversal from the position taken by the Biden administration.

Whereas the Biden administration privately communicated with WPATH to change details of its guidelines on providing gender transition procedures to minors, the Trump administration is investigating WPATH for the very same guidelines.

Editor’s Note: On Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission over its investigation into the organization’s support of “gender-affirming care“ for transgender youth.

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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