The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said on July 28 that it has launched a public inquiry into whether consumers, particularly minors, have been harmed by false or unsubstantiated claims about “gender-affirming care,” and whether such practices may violate federal law.

The launch of the public inquiry follows a July 9 FTC workshop that featured testimony from doctors, ethicists, whistleblowers, detransitioners, and parents who alleged that some providers made unsupported claims about the safety or effectiveness of the treatments and failed to disclose material risks.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said during the workshop that the agency was not looking to pass moral judgment but is instead focused on whether “fraudulent and deceptive” practices have been followed. He cited the agency’s mandate under Sections 5 and 12 of the FTC Act to challenge false or unsubstantiated health claims, including whether patients are being fully informed about the risks associated with such procedures.

Ferguson said at the time that medical practitioners and others sometimes try to persuade parents of children with gender dysphoria that procedures such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries are necessary to prevent suicide.

“Parents are thus confronted with a terrifying choice,“ Ferguson said. ”Either consent to ‘gender-affirming care’ or their child may die.”

On Monday, the agency published a request for information, inviting the public to submit data, advertisements, social media posts, or personal accounts of their experiences of such claims. The FTC said comments received during the 60 days could inform potential enforcement actions if it is found that health claims made by advocates or providers of the treatments are deceptive, misleading, and harmful.

“As the agency that has been historically tasked as the federal government’s guardian against deceptive health claims and has brought dozens of enforcement actions in this area, the FTC is uniquely positioned to investigate this potentially unlawful activity,” the FTC said in its request for comment.

The FTC’s request for public input on the matter comes amid heightened national and international debate over treatments for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. More than two dozen U.S. states have passed laws restricting such treatments for minors, and the U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld Tennessee’s ban. Some European countries, including the United Kingdom, have moved to scale back similar interventions.

“Some medical organizations continue to advocate for GAC [gender-affirming care] as the best standard of care, despite the apparent lack of a widespread medical consensus as to whether GAC is the correct course of action for gender dysphoric youth,” the FTC said in its request for public comment.

Advocates for the treatments say they lower suicide risk.

“Gender-affirming care has been shown to reduce suicide ideation and attempts in transgender individuals,” nonprofit The Trevor Project said in a 2020 article.

Although Daniel Jackson, a researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at Norton College of Medicine, found in a 2023 review of 23 related studies that most showed reductions in suicidality—including suicidal ideation and attempts—after “gender-affirming” treatments, he cautioned that the existing research is methodologically weak and prone to false-positive findings. He concluded that the results are not conclusive without more rigorous, long-term studies.

The review pointed to a major shortcoming in that few studies tracked patients over extended periods, a gap that makes it difficult to determine whether any observed improvements endure beyond an initial “honeymoon period” after treatment. It also flagged a common failure to control for time before and after intervention, which can artificially skew results: Suicide attempts or thoughts may appear reduced simply because less time has passed since treatment compared to the pre‑treatment period.

The author also noted that suicide attempts remain statistically rare and hard to predict even in high‑risk groups, underscoring the need for clearer reporting and better‑designed studies to assess the true effects of the treatments.

Stacy Robinson contributed to this report.