On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched a “public inquiry” to collect data from consumers about their exposure to misinformation about the benefits of "affirming care” for minors, and to assess any harms caused by deceptive trade practices. FTC’s request for information builds off a July workshop where “doctors, medical ethicists, whistleblowers, detransitioners, and parents of detransitioners” spoke about their experiences with “affirming care” and how medical practitioners may be deceiving patients. In particular, the FTC is interested in potential violations of Sections 5 and 12 of the FTC Act, which would include instances where doctors or organizations failed to disclose material risks, or made unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of “gender-affirming care.” The public will have 60 days to submit comments.
In City Journal, Leor Sapir interviews Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist for the Gender Management Service at Boston Children's Hospital. For context, Sapir argues that Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper is portrayed in the New York Times’ podcast about gender medicine, the Protocol, as a stand in for what the Times views as “gender medicine done right.” And yet, Sapir argues that the middle ground position Edwards-Leeper symbolizes falls prey to the “golden mean fallacy,” and still must address fundamental questions about clinical rationale, treatment ethics, and the reliability of the evidence-base. Sapir hopes the interview–which addresses topics like the nature of sex, the gender clinic model of care, and “gender identity” instruction in schools–will help readers “decide for themselves whether and to what extent her approach is a reasonable path forward for gender medicine.”
Kaiser Permanente has announced that it will cease rendering sex-rejecting surgeries for persons under 19, however, it will still provide other interventions like cross-sex hormones. “After significant deliberation and consultation with internal and external experts, including our physicians, we’ve made the difficult decision to pause surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19 in our hospitals and surgical centers” a Kaiser spokesperson told NewsNation affiliate KTXL. According to Kaiser, its decision-making calculus has been shaped by Trump’s EO instructing federal agencies to cut funding for sex-rejecting interventions, and recent initiatives by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service and the Federal Trade Commission.
After a month-long investigation, the U.S. Department of Education has determined that five North Virginia school districts violated Title IX by allowing students to use facilities based on “gender identity” rather than sex. School systems in Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax County, Loudoun County and Prince William County have ten days to rescind their current policies, incorporate biology-based definitions of sex into their Title IX policies, and issue a memo to each school that explicitly states that future policies must be consistent with Title IX. In recent days, the districts have requested a 90-day extension to comply. “It is time for these school leaders to do the right thing for students and parents. I thank President Trump and Secretary McMahon for their actions in defense of student safety, privacy and dignity," said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Last week, the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Oregon Department of Education after it received complaints that the state allows trans-identified male athletes to compete on girls’ and women’s sports teams. The Trump administration has launched similar investigations into Maine and California for violations of Title IX. “If Oregon is permitting males to compete in women’s sports, it is allowing these males to steal the accolades and opportunities that female competitors have rightfully earned through hard work and grit, while callously disregarding women’s and girls’ safety, dignity, and privacy,” acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said.
A Daily Wire analysis tries to make sense of a 2023-2024 annual report from Planned Parenthood that appears to undercount the scope and frequency of sex-rejecting procedures rendered compared to data acquired from affiliate sites, and previous annual reports. Daily Wire notes that in 2023-2024, Planned Parenthood’s “other procedures” category–which includes “transgender services”–dropped 56% from the previous year. Despite the release of only half of Planned Parenthood affiliate data on 2023-2024 sex-rejecting procedures, the numbers already “outpace Planned Parenthood’s entire ‘other services’ category on a national level.” “It’s time for reckoning. The American people demand answers for how Planned Parenthood spent their money, and it may take a subpoena from Congress to get an honest answer” writer Macy Petty concludes.
Gothamist reports that hundreds of NY health care professionals have issued a letter urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign an “Enhanced Shield Law” bill for “affirming care,” which would formalize existing protections achieved via executive order. If passed into law, the bill would expand protections by“blocking out-of-state subpoenas, empowering the attorney general to defend providers and shielding supportive parents from prosecution elsewhere.” According to Gothamist, there is no timeline for when Hochul will make a decision. “I don’t know what the holdup is…I give the governor some grace because we in the Legislature have passed thousands of bills that she and her team have to review, but I hope this letter gets their attention” said State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who also co-sponsored the bill.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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