The Federal Trade Commission and four states filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, arguing that its “deceptive claims” have provided the basis for harmful gender-transition surgeries and drugs for minors.
The federal complaint accused the organization of failing to ground its widely cited Standards of Care on medical evidence, including its decision to omit age limits for procedures such as “breast amputation or penis removal,” in its 2022 guidance known as SOC-8.
The WPATH standards have for decades “misled parents and children about the medical consensus and medical necessity, as well as the safety and effectiveness, of such services, in violation of the FTC Act,” the agency said.
“Today, the FTC filed a lawsuit against WPATH alleging that the organization made false and unsubstantiated claims regarding the necessity, effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers, hormones and sex-change surgeries,” said Andrew Ferguson, the agency’s chairman.
The lawsuit was filed a month after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocked an FTC investigation into WPATH and the Endocrine Society, finding that the agency’s demands for documents were based in part on “hostility toward WPATH’s viewpoint and advocacy regarding transgender care.”
Illinois-based WPATH accused the commission of trying to subvert the ruling.
“As an end-around, the FTC has now purportedly brought a similarly baseless actual complaint and has enlisted the administration’s go-to, obedient state attorneys general to help do its unlawful bidding,” it said in a statement.
The four states joining the FTC on the complaint are Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.
WPATH added that the agency “is not a medical provider and has no place interfering with the process of individualized medical decision-making.”
Cheering the legal challenge were conservative organizations that have long accused WPATH of prioritizing transgender advocacy over the risks to children from gender-transition drugs and surgeries.
“We applaud Chairman Ferguson for taking decisive action against the engine of the transgender industrial machine, WPATH,” said Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer of Do No Harm. “By falsely portraying pediatric gender transition as a lifesaving intervention, this activist organization promoted a narrative that irreversible, life-altering procedures were the only viable option for gender-confused children.”
The complaint alleged that WPATH “failed to disclose side effects of certain pediatric medical transition services, including that cross-sex hormones can cause mood disturbances, vocal pain and limitations, pelvic pain, clitoral discomfort, vaginal pain, inability to orgasm, incontinence and erectile pain.”
The 123-page lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth Division).
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