FTC Has ‘Unequivocal Basis’ to Scrutinize Transgender Industry, Commissioner Says

The federal government’s foremost consumer protection agency has an “unequivocal basis” to start investigating the transgender medicine industry after a workshop highlighting stakeholders’ horror stories, Mark Meador of the Federal Trade Commission told The Daily Signal.

The FTC hosted a daylong workshop on Wednesday called “The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care for Minors” to hear from parents and patients and determine whether the transgender industry has deceived families.

“I think they gave a lot of extremely alarming and concerning information that absolutely gives us the basis to investigate, to fill out the entire legal framework that we would need to pursue a case,” Meador said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal after the workshop.

“There’s a lot of things that need to be verified—dot the I’s, cross the T’s, that sort of thing,” he explained. “But I think what we saw today gave us an unequivocal basis to start investigating and determining how and where there have been violations.”

The statute that created the Federal Trade Commission authorizes it to investigate and prevent “unfair or deceptive” practices affecting consumers. 

To conduct the investigation, the FTC can use compulsory process, which entails sending subpoenas or something akin to subpoenas requiring individuals, companies, and medical practices to provide documents, testimony, and written answers to questions. The FTC also uses documents and testimony from third parties to determine whether the law has been violated.

Informed by the findings of the workshop, the FTC will issue a public request for information on transgender medical interventions next week, Chairman Andrew Ferguson announced Wednesday.

That will allow the FTC to “figure out who are the people we should be talking to, what are the questions we should be asking, and what kind of harm should we be on the lookout for,” Meador said.

A key part of the context of the possible deception and fraud is that doctors told parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria that they can choose between having “a dead son or a living daughter,” or vice versa. The commissioner referred to rhetoric implying a child would commit suicide if not allowed to medically transition as “emotional blackmail.”

“That’s going to certainly factor into whether something was deceptive,” Meador said. “But we also need to look at whether that statement itself is true and deceptive. That’s absolutely going to be part of the investigation.”

When the FTC thinks that a party has violated the law, it can present evidence to a court and seek an injunction to prohibit an entity from continuing to violate the law.

“That would be one of the remnants we would have at our disposal if we are able to go to court and prove our case,” Meador said. “At the end of that, we could hopefully get a judge to say this conduct violates Section 5 of the FTC act or some other statute, and then have the judge enter an order to companies or persons continuing to engage in that conduct.”

The FTC is putting “anyone that’s been involved in any sort of deception” on notice, according to Meador.

“You don’t want to cut off one head of the Hydra and leave the other still chomping at their victims,” he said. “So, it’s important that if there is an entity as a whole that’s been engaged in deception, you obtain a remedy that covers all of them, not just one individual.”

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