Justice Department Uses Anti-Trans FTC Workshop to Announce Investigations
Leading Off: The DOJ launches investigations into gender-affirming care providers. ICE erases the numbers of transgender people in custody. And the EOCC resumes processing discrimination complaints by trans workers. The top story lines as the week begins.
by Assigned Media
The Justice Department is aggressively targeting gender-affirming care providers and snooping through the medical records of trans patients in the process.
Last Wednesday, at a Federal Trade Commission event, the Department of Justice Chief of Staff announced that the DOJ had filed more than twenty subpoenas for records from clinics providing gender-affirming care for minors; a press release later that day confirmed this. The DOJ is claiming potential fraud and false statements are the reasons for these investigations, but the move is largely seen as an escalation of the ideologically-motivated attacks on transgender healthcare.
This marks a new angle in the administration’s attacks on trans healthcare. Gender affirming care is widely recognised as safe and effective.
The FTC event featured an array of speakers and panelists from known anti-trans activist organizations such as Do No Harm, the Manhattan Institute, and the LGB Courage Coalition. Notably one of the panelists was Ethan Haim, a doctor who in 2024 was charged with accessing and leaking the medical records of transgender children to Chris Rufo, who would go on to publish the data to Twitter.
ICE has stopped recording the numbers of transgender people that it has in immigration detention. This erasure has complicated the efforts of advocates and has them concerned for the safety of transgender people in custody.
This is just one of many instances of the Trump Administration going to the effort of erasing the records and existence of trans people. Shortly after Trump took office, mentions of trans and intersex people were removed from numerous government pages and resources.
Later that same month, trans and queer were removed from the Stonewall National Monument website, prompting a number of protests and rallies in opposition to the changes. Recently, mentions of bisexual people were removed from the Stonewall National Monument page as well, as reported by Erin Reed.
While some of the latest changes were quietly reversed, they serve as a chilling indication of an intention to systematically erase records of LGBTQ+ people entirely as a way of removing us from the public consciousness.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this week resumed processing discrimination complaints by transgender workers, coming as a surprise after they stopped processing these claims shortly after Trump took office.
While these claims will be under higher scrutiny, this change comes as a welcome one, despite it not being clear as to what prompted it. This will allow at least some transgender workers to pursue compensation for cases of discrimination in the workplace
Assigned Media is your transgender news source.