THE FEDERAL TRADE Commission appears to be targeting transgender rights, going beyond its usual ways of operating to do so, according to experts and federal employees who spoke to WIRED.
Since July 2025, the agency has been gearing up to frame gender-affirming care for minors as a consumer-protection issue, in a move that a former FTC employee, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, described as “very strange.”
“I think their end goal here is to be on the front page, being warriors for the Trump anti-trans agenda,” they claim.
In January, the agency began requesting documents and materials from nonprofits that support health care providers who provide care to transgender people. The FTC issued what are known as civil investigative demands (CIDs)—instruments similar to subpoenas that an agency can use to conduct investigations—to the American Academy of Pediatrics, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the Endocrine Society. The cases are being brought by the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
“The FTC has brought lots of cases around phony cures, phony health products,” the former employee says. But those cases were targeted around issues like businesses peddling fake Covid cures. In cases where the FTC has gone after nonprofits, the former employee says, it has involved the nonprofit misappropriating donations.
