DOJ, HHS, FTC, FDA: The Alphabet Soup of Efforts to Restrict Gender-Affirming Care

This story was originally published on The 19th.The United States is using the full power of the federal government to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The American Psychological Association has accused the Trump administration of ignoring science and undermining mental health through its anti-trans policies. Groups including Planned Parenthood, AIDS United and the Human Rights Campaign see these tactics as a serious threat to the private medical information of everyone, not just trans people. If doctors can’t provide treatment without fear of political retaliation, these advocacy groups say, public health will be harmed. In response to pressure from the administration, many hospitals across the country have stopped seeing young trans patients, including some in states where gender-affirming care is protected.Youth transition care is banned in 27 states, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy organization — and 24 states impose penalties against healthcare practitioners who provide it. Half of trans teenagers in the United States live in states where care is already banned, per the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. As a reminder, gender-affirming care in a medical setting refers to taking puberty blockers as a preteen, hormone therapy as a teenager, or, for a small minority of transgender youth, surgery. Not all trans youth pursue all of these treatments. We break down how federal agencies are taking unprecedented action to keep physicians from providing the care and what’s coming next. The Justice DepartmentFor over a year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been investigating whether off-label promotion or dispensing of puberty blockers and hormones for trans minors violated federal law, like the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).As part of that investigation, the DOJ has tried to force hospitals to share names of patients under 18 who have received gender-affirming care in the past five to seven years, plus names o