FTC kicks off its first workshop on the medical mutilation of minors

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday held its first investigative workshop on the gender medicine industry, which uses fraud and deception to subject children to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries.

Ethical doctors refer to these procedures as medical mutilation because of the irreversible damage they cause to children, such as lifelong sterility, anorgasmia, and other conditions. Gender activists who push medical mutilation on minors deny these harms and falsely claim that gender-confused children are at risk of suicide if not medically mutilated. In reality, as much as 98% of children who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria naturally outgrow it, unless they receive puberty blockers which prevent them from doing so. Furthermore, evidence shows that kids who are medically mutilated are at a higher risk of suicidality, contrary to gender activists’ claims.

‘Blatant consumer fraud’

At Wednesday’s workshop, titled “The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson heard from doctors, academics, parents, and “detransitioners”—youth who were subjected to medical mutilation procedures and have begun the long journey back to health. Claire Abernathy, who was transitioned a week after turning 14, described through tears how she underwent a double mastectomy when she was too young to get a tattoo or learn how to drive. She hadn’t yet learned algebra.

“I was told that if I didn't do this, I would probably end up dead,” Abernathy said. “It’s not healthcare. It’s blatant consumer fraud,” she added.

Ferguson also heard from detransitioner Simon Amaya Price and his father, Gareth, who recalled being bullied by medical professionals with the now-infamous question: “Would you rather have a dead son, or a living daughter?” The question, commonly posed to parents by gender activists, implies the child will commit suicide if he or she does not undergo medical mutilation procedures. In reality, however, a child who is medically mutilated is at a higher risk of suicide than a child who is allowed to outgrow their gender confusion naturally.

Fraudulent to the core

Speakers also included Dr. Miriam Grossman, a renowned child psychologist at the forefront of the fight against medical mutilation for kids. Dr. Grossman’s presentation showed how even the internal procedures used by gender clinics and hospitals are rife with deception and fraud.

In one slide, for example, Dr. Grossman showed a hospital admission note for Layla Jane, who Kaiser Permanente admitted for a double mastectomy when she was just 13. The note referred to Jane as a “13-year-old male.” Another Kaiser Permanente document identified a female patient as “non-binary.”

“This is not someone’s Facebook page,” said Dr. Grossman. “This is not Instagram. This is a legal document identifying a person as ‘non-binary.’”

She showed a patient document from Boston Children’s Hospital that had a field for the patient’s “legal sex.” The document also listed the patient’s “organ inventory,” which included breasts, a cervix, ovaries, a penis, and testes.

“I don’t know if they were indicating that Simon had all these organs,” Dr. Grossman said to laughter from the audience, “or whether someone forgot to make a checkmark next to the ones that he actually has.”

“This is not medical care,” she stressed. “This is dehumanizing.”

The fraud behind medical mutilation

The gender medicine industry relies heavily on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which sets the medical “guidelines” for medical mutilation, even though only some of its members are medical professionals. WPATH has been found to issue its guidelines not based on medical science but on political pressure. It was the Biden HHS that pushed WPATH to remove age limits on medical mutilation procedures.

In another possible instance of consumer fraud, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, considered one of the leading doctors in gender medicine, is withholding the results of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the psychological effects of medical mutilation. The study set out to determine whether these procedures benefit children psychologically. Ninety-five children across the country were recruited and administered puberty blockers. After two years, they were assessed to determine whether their mental health had improved or declined.

Nine years later, Olson-Kennedy has refused to publish the study. Although she claims she will do so eventually, she said she is withholding the data over concerns that the findings will be “weaponized.”

The physician told the New York Times there was no improvement in the mental health of the participants because they were in “good shape” before and after the study.

The Cass Review, the largest independent review on “gender-affirming care” to date, found no basis to conclude that medical mutilation helps boost a child’s mental health. The report cited studies showing that children and “trans” children have the same rate of suicidality and that mental health treatment, not puberty blockers, reduces suicides among children with gender confusion. Several studies found high rates of suicide among young people who were subjected to “gender-affirming care.” Further evidence suggests a positive correlation between medical mutilation procedures and suicide.

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