{"id":41479,"date":"2025-04-25T04:32:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T09:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41479"},"modified":"2025-04-25T04:33:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T09:33:04","slug":"doj-will-investigate-doctors-who-provide-trans-care-to-minors-attorney-general-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41479","title":{"rendered":"DOJ will investigate doctors who provide trans care to minors, attorney general says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo this week seeking to further curtail access to transgender health care for minors. In the memo, Bondi said the Justice Department will use a variety of existing U.S. laws to investigate providers of such care, as well as drug manufacturers <\/strong>and distributors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She directed U.S. attorneys to use laws against female genital mutilation to investigate doctors who \u201cmutilate\u201d children \u201cunder the guise of care\u201d and to prosecute these <\/strong>\u201coffenses to the fullest extent possible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am putting medical practitioners, hospitals, and clinics on notice: In the United States, it is a felony to perform, attempt to perform, or conspire to perform female genital mutilation (\u2018FGM\u2019) on any person under the age of 18,\u201d Bondi wrote. \u201cThat crime carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years per count.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bondi also directed the Consumer Protection Branch of the DOJ\u2019s Civil Division to investigate potential violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act<\/a> <\/strong>by drug manufacturers and distributors who engage “in misbranding by making false claims about the on- or off-label use of puberty blockers, sex hormones, or any other drug used to facilitate\u201d a minor\u2019s gender transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she directed the Civil Division\u2019s Fraud Section to investigate potential violations of the False Claims Act<\/a> by physicians who submit \u201cfalse claims \u2026 to federal health care programs for any non-covered services related to radical gender experimentation.\u201d (She included as an example of this a physician prescribing puberty blockers to a minor for gender-transition care but reporting it to Medicaid as being for early-onset puberty.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robin Maril, an assistant professor of constitutional law at Oregon\u2019s Willamette University, said Bondi\u2019s memo doesn\u2019t change any existing laws. Doctors, she said, will not be breaking the law by continuing to treat trans minors if they live in a state where such care is still legal. She also noted that Medicaid fraud and defrauding the government are already crimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bulk of this is just showing how they\u2019re going to use resources and investigate,\u201d Maril said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a law change. It\u2019s meant to have a chilling effect on physicians providing access to necessary care, fearing that it will be characterized as chemical and surgical mutilation of children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that the memo\u2019s call on whistleblowers to report \u201cknowledge of any such violations\u201d could further make doctors afraid of being reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear what type of procedure would be considered female genital mutilation \u201cunder the guise of care\u201d according to Bondi\u2019s interpretation of U.S. law. The FBI defines it<\/a> as \u201cpartial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transition-related care for minors can encompass a range of treatments, including talk therapy for younger children, puberty-blocking medications for adolescents and hormone therapy for older teens. Bondi\u2019s memo specifically mentions gender-affirming surgeries, which are not recommended for minors. In rare cases, older teens can receive a double mastectomy, or removal of the breasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also unclear if <\/strong>Bondi\u2019s directives would conflict with federal and state anti-discrimination laws. A provision in the Affordable Care Act, for example, prohibits physicians who are providing federally funded services from discriminating based on sex. The Biden administration issued a notice<\/a> interpreting that provision to include protection based on gender identity, but the Trump administration rescinded that notice in February<\/a>. Some advocates argue the provision\u2019s protections and some state nondiscrimination laws still apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 1980s, medical providers have prescribed puberty blockers, which temporarily stop puberty, to children who start puberty too early, according to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center<\/a>, and they’ve used them off label to treat trans adolescents since the 1990s<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major medical associations in the U.S., such as the American Medical Association<\/a>, the American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a> and the American Psychological Association<\/a>, support access to transition-related care for minors and oppose restrictions on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, Bondi\u2019s memo refers to this type of care as \u201cradical gender experimentation,\u201d and it cites research conducted<\/a> by an advocacy group that opposes gender-affirming care for minors. That group found that, from 2019 to 2023, 14,000 children received treatment for gender dysphoria \u2014 the medical term for the distress caused by the misalignment between one\u2019s gender identity and sex assigned at birth \u2014 and 5,700 had surgery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, trans advocates have noted that the rate of breast surgeries among adolescents who are cisgender, meaning not transgender, is much higher. For example, in 2011, more than 14,000 breast reduction procedures<\/a> were performed in the United States on adolescent boys to correct gynecomastia, a benign condition that causes enlarged breast tissue, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bondi\u2019s memo is the administration\u2019s latest attempt at restricting trans health care. Just over a week after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order<\/a> aimed at curtailing transition-related care for minors by prohibiting federal funding for such care and threatening to withhold grants from hospitals and medical universities that provide the care, among other restrictions. At least two<\/a> judges have temporarily blocked<\/a> that order from taking effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last few years, 27 states have enacted measures<\/a> restricting access to transition-related care for minors. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision soon in a lawsuit against such a restriction in Tennessee<\/a>, which could affect minors\u2019 access to care nationwide and potentially care for trans adults under federally funded health programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo this week seeking to further curtail access to transgender health care for minors. In the memo, Bondi said the Justice Department will use a variety of existing U.S. laws to investigate providers of such care, as well as drug manufacturers and distributors.  She directed U.S. attorneys to use laws […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[3642,33079,3157,1395],"class_list":["post-41479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-attorney-general","tag-health-care-services","tag-minors","tag-transgender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41481,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41479\/revisions\/41481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}