WASHINGTON — A prominent medical advocacy group is urging the Federal Trade Commission to probe whether the American Psychological Association knowingly promoted transgender surgeries on minors while being aware of the pitfalls.
Do No Harm, a group aimed at “protecting healthcare from identity politics,” argued to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson that the association’s 2024 policy statement in support of such operations on minors contradicts its statement to regulators last September.
In 2024, the APA, which touts some 173,000 members, stressed the “necessity for access to comprehensive, gender-affirming healthcare for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary children” and decried “misinformation” stigmatizing such interventions.
A little over a year later, the group struck a somewhat nuanced tone with FTC, emphasizing that a gender dysphoria “diagnosis does not automatically mean social or medical transition.”
“The contradictory messages – which expose the APA for telling federal regulators one thing, and gender activists another – raise concerns that the APA may be knowingly promoting so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ (GAC) for minors in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act,” Do No Harm wrote to Ferguson.
“The APA has tried to play both sides of the gender debate without actually changing its stance,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, the Chief Medical Officer at Do No Harm, wrote in the Monday letter exclusively obtained by The Post.
Do No Harm argued that the APA’s emphasis on not rushing children towards interventions such as “gender affirming care” and its conceding that there’s a “lack of long-term scientific evidence” to back those approaches in its 2025 letter to the FTC runs counter to its 2024 statement.
“The 2024 Policy Statement explicitly endorses medical gender-affirming care and condemns non affirmation as harmful, while the 2025 FTC submission appears to walk that back in the face of regulatory scrutiny,” Miceli contended.
The APA previously denied that its 2024 policy statement and 2025 letter contradict each other when pressed by the Daily Wire. Notably, the APA’s 2025 letter to the FTC cited its 2024 policy statement.
The Post contacted the APA for comment.
Do No Harm’s missive to the FTC comes as the federal agency has been cracking down on medical groups, launching inquiries into the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics over their guidelines on transgender interventions for minors.
Miceli urged the FTC to add the APA to that group and investigate the group for “false or unsubstantiated representations.”
“By promoting two irreconcilable positions, the APA is deceiving the FTC, psychologists, and minor patients and their guardians,” Miceli told The Post.
“Make no mistake, the APA’s original policy position pushes for unobstructed access to sex-rejecting interventions for children, equates non-affirmation with violence, and condemns state protections as human rights violations,” he added.
Over 3.3% — or 724,000 — of young Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 identify as transgender, according to data by the Williams Institute, which cited surveys conducted in 2021 and 2023.
That’s a significantly higher rate of people identifying as transgender than any other older age range cited in the data.
Alleigh Marré, the executive director of the American Parents Coalition, which similarly scrutinizes medical and education policy towards children, echoed the call for an FTC probe into the APA.
“Medical organizations whose mission is to provide guidance to healthcare providers across the country continue to prioritize transgender ideology over the well-being of children,” Marré said in a statement.
“The evidence continues to show that allowing children to undergo experimental and irreversible gender interventions have detrimental effects.”
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