The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys general from multiple states have filed a lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), alleging that the organization has made “false and unsubstantiated claims” about sex change procedures for children in order for doctors to “sell those procedures to children and parents.”

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson took to X on Wednesday to announce the agency’s efforts to protect children and parental rights.

“Since President Trump was sworn in, the FTC has been aggressively protecting children and the rights of parents across every part of the economy,” Ferguson said. “Today, the FTC took another huge step in defense of children and parents. We have filed an enforcement action against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) for making false and unsubstantiated claims about the safety and efficacy of medical transition procedures, and for providing doctors with the means to sell those procedures to children and parents. The lawsuit alleges that WPATH made deceptive claims about the ‘necessity, safety, and efficacy of certain drugs and surgeries used to medically transition children.’”

The complaint alleges that medical providers relied on WPATH’s claims when performing medical sex changes on children. According to the lawsuit, these procedures resulted in permanent changes to the bodies of the children treated, often at significant personal cost.

Ferguson continued, “Parents have a right to make informed decisions about their children’s health. The FTC will not allow parents and children to be deceived by medical organizations and providers who are prioritizing profit over children’s health and safety. While we can never undo the many harms caused by WPATH’s deception, we can prevent WPATH from making false and unsubstantiated medical claims in the future, and that’s what we intend to do.”

The complaint notes that clinicians often recite claims to parents of heightened risks of suicide if their children do undergo a sex change, and that these procedures are “life-saving.” Doctors in many cases ask parents whether they would like to have “a live daughter or a dead son.” There is an “absence of evidence that these interventions reduce the risk of suicide,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit focuses on 10 misrepresentations or omissions made by WPATH, including misrepresentations of child sex changes being “medically necessary to prevent suicide,” “puberty blockers are fully reversible,” “cross-sex hormones improve mental health,” and that the “[Standards of Care] 8 to be the result of unbiased, evidence-based consensus,” and that WPATH failed to “adequately disclose in SOC-8 some side effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and breast amputations. 

“WPATH made each of these ten misrepresentations or omissions expressly or by implication, WPATH knew they were false or misleading, and WPATH further knew—and intended—that they would provide WPATH members and other providers of medical transition services with the means to mislead consumers. Each of these ten misrepresentations was, and is, important to WPATH members and other providers of transition services. Each of these representations were, and are, important to the children, who receive, and parents, who pay for, those services. As a result of these ten central misrepresentations and omissions, and as pleaded herein, unlawful deception occurred and continues to occur.”

WPATH responded by saying that a federal court had already ruled against the FTC, finding that “WPATH is in a strong position to prove that the FTC is acting out of pure retaliation as part of the federal government’s relentless and targeted campaign to undermine gender-affirming care by attacking the First Amendment rights and the independence of professional medical organizations,” the statement said. “We expect the same result when we oppose this latest attack on WPATH and its mission to promote evidence-informed care and guidance for doctors and their patients.”