A Chicago health facility diagnoses transgender patients with a vague medical condition to prescribe cross-sex hormones despite growing suspicion that the diagnosis is fraudulent.The Howard Brown Health Center’s website says it avoids stigmatizing transgender patients on hormones by giving their insurance providers a diagnosis for an unspecified “endocrine disorder,” which typically refers to one’s body having imbalanced hormone levels. HBHC previously expressed concerns it could lose funds under President Donald Trump and scrubbed mentions of child sex changes from its site in 2025, but the diagnosis policy remains public after similar diagnosis methods sparked fraud investigations nationwide, the Washington Examiner found. A senior HBHC staffer is also a scholar for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a group facing a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit for allegedly crafting misleading medical guidance to allow for gender-related insurance coverage.HBCH relies on the widely used International Classification of Diseases, or ICD codes, to document patients’ conditions treated and reviewed by insurance carriers. Transgender people on hormone drugs “will receive a diagnosis of Endocrine Disorder (ICD code 259.9)” instead of the ICD codes representing “Gender Identity Disorder, Gender Dysphoria or Transsexualism,” the facility’s website says. Though Illinois regulations often protect insurance coverage for sex changes, using those diagnoses suggests “that being transgender or gender diverse is a sign of mental illness or a gender identity disorder,” the site argues.