WPATH

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) last week for making “false and unsubstantiated” statements which enabled the promotion of sex-rejecting procedures to minors.

The lawsuit, which Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas joined, alleges WPATH’s Standards of Care, Version 8 (SOC-8), the group’s treatment recommendations for transgender-identified people, deceived families about the scientific support for and effectiveness of pediatric sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blocking drugs, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries.

The FTC isn’t the first to lay out SOC-8’s blatant scientific deficiencies. It is, however, one of the first to assign WPATH an alleged motive for pushing sex-rejecting procedures on American families and children: cold, hard cash.

The filing asserts:

The vast majority of WPATH members work in the “transgender” procedures industry. Some, including three of five members of WPATH’s executive committee, perform sex-rejecting procedures. Others work in related businesses, like “gender-affirming” counseling.

WPATH lines its members’ pockets by legitimizing and expanding access to sex-rejecting procedures. According to the FTC, this has always been WPATH’s purpose, dating back to its inception in 1979.

That year was a disastrous one for the burgeoning “transgender” procedures industry. Johns Hopkins University closed down its “Gender Identity Clinic,” which opened in 1966, after a university psychiatrist published a paper “showing no objective benefit to transition.”

Other clinics followed suit, reflecting general unease over difficulty diagnosing “dissatisfaction with one’s sex traits” and inability to determine which patients would benefit from sex-rejecting procedures.

Lack of academic backing prompted insurance companies to stop covering the experimental interventions — drastically limiting the number of people who could purchase them.

The FTC’s filing claims members of the floundering “transgender” procedures industry created WPATH to recreate a semblance of academic support for their dangerous, experimental medical interventions.

The group published its first Standards of Care in 1981 to establish itself as an academic authority. In the four decades since, it has successfully masqueraded as an expert medical group, rather than a profit-driven industry lobby.

Until very recently, WPATH had nearly unilateral power to determine accepted standards of care for transgender-identified people, including what procedures insurance companies paid for. The Department of Health and Human Services’ 2025 report on the harms of sex-rejecting procedures for minors notes, “Many U.S. public and private health insurers and regulatory bodies rely on SOC-8 when making coverage determinations.”

The FTC alleges WPATH used this power to gradually expand its customer base.

In 2008, for instance, WPATH first declared opposite-sex hormones and sex-rejecting surgeries “medically necessary,” a term which generally triggers insurance coverage.

Less than two decades later, the FTC notes, SOC-8 encourages insurance companies to consider “‘medically necessary’ virtually every pediatric medical transition service that a transition doctor could perform for a fee,” including “gender affirming hair removal.”

WPATH members have also made untold millions by performing sex-rejecting procedures on kids. Lowering age limits on transgender medical interventions gives doctors a chance to cash in on the temporary sexual identity confusion kids often face.

The filing explains.

Similarly, if a doctor administers puberty blockers to a child, they are significantly more likely receive opposite-sex hormones and sex-rejecting surgical procedures.

The estimated lifetime cost of “transgender” medical interventions for a man ranges from $75,000 to nearly $411,000, according to the filing. For a woman, the range is even wider, spanning from about $67,000 to as much as $606,000.

“WPATH has long represented itself as the final authority for the gender-related treatment of children, advancing profit-driven ideology unsupported by science and withholding crucial information from children, parents and doctors,” Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers wrote in a press release.

“We’re proud to work with the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to hold WPATH accountable for deceiving parents and medical professionals and causing harm to children and nationwide.”

“Patients and their families have been deceived into believing the organization is an authoritative, medical body, when, in truth, their recommendations are based on politics and ideology,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird added.

“Parents and children deserve better.”

The Daily Citizen couldn’t agree more. We thank the FTC, Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas for bringing this action in service of children and families harmed by WPATH. Please pray justice be done in this case.

Additional Articles and Resources

FTC Begins Investigating ‘Gender Affirming’ Medical Community for Deception, False Advertising

Activist Group WPATH Influences Judgement in Case of Prisoner Receiving Trans Surgery

Suicidal or Stable? WPATH Activist’s Contradictory Evaluation Secures Felon Transgender Surgery

The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’

The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’

Transgender Organization Suggests Hormones and Surgeries Should Start Even Earlier for Gender-Confused Teens

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

To read more about Jonathan Richardson’s case, check out the stories linked at the bottom of this article.

A federal district judge has disregarded yet another evaluation showing Jonathan Richardson, a mentally-ill man incarcerated for murder, should not get transgender surgery — especially on taxpayers’ dime.

On March 5, Judge Richard Young of the Southern District Court of Indiana extended his preliminary injunction against a state law preventing tax dollars from funding transgender surgeries.

Young first issued the injunction in September when he ordered the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC), a tax-funded institution, to pay for Richardson’s “gender-affirming” vaginoplasty (the construction of a fake vagina) and orchiectomy (castration).

Refusing Richardson surgery would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, Young wrote in his September ruling.

The IDOC opposed this month’s extension, submitting yet another psychiatric evaluation of Richardson finding he shouldn’t get transgender surgery.

Dr. Kelsey Beers, the lead psychologist at New Castle Correctional Facility, conducted an assessment of Richardson at the request of Richardson’s would-be surgeon. According to Young’s nine-page order, Beers concluded:

Beers expressed discomfort at evaluating Richardson without specializing in gender dysphoria. But her conclusions mirror that of Drs. Steven Levine and Michael Farjellah, who evaluated Richardson ahead of the hearing in September.

Farjellah claimed Richardson’s borderline personality disorder made him unable to consent to such drastic surgery.

Levine, a former member of WPATH’s predecessor, the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, concluded Richardson’s gender confusion was sufficiently managed by opposite-sex hormones and therapy.

He suggested more therapy be dedicated, in part, to Richardson’s “…. willingness to manipulate and mislead doctors.”

Young found Farjellah and Levine’s arguments “unpersuasive.” Last week, he found Beers’ qualifications “questionable” and her revelations about Richardson’s personality disorders “nothing new.”

The judge’s decision is flabbergasting, but also predictable. As the Daily Citizen previously reported, Young’s adjudication of the case is hopelessly skewed by his reliance on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

WPATH bills itself as an objective, scientific body dedicated to caring for those with gender dysphoria. In reality, its members, affiliates and researchers are ideologically and financially invested in transgender medical interventions.

Judge Young hasn’t clocked this conflict of interest. Instead, he disregards the testimony of every doctor that disagrees with WPATH’s “surgery at all costs” orientation.

Case in point: the judge found Dr. Randi Ettner’s testimony “credible and persuasive.”

Ettner, a WPATH contributor and employee at the Weiss Memorial Hospital Center for Gender Confirmation Surgery, painted Young two categorically opposed pictures of Richardson’s mental state in September.

The surgeries were “medically necessary,” Ettner argued, because Richardson could commit suicide if he didn’t go under the knife — a common refrain among gender idealogues. She simultaneously claimed he was mentally well enough to consent to surgery because his depression and personality disorders were under control.

Ettner even portrayed Richardson’s attempt to castrate himself as evidence of his healthy mind. She told Judge Young:

I’m no expert, but I’m 200% sure self-castration isn’t a sign of rationality. That statement alone should have disqualified Ettner’s testimony — and maybe barred her from courtrooms altogether.

But even overlooking the castration kerfuffle, Ettner’s larger argument is coconuts. Richardson cannot simultaneously be mentally ill enough to commit suicide if he doesn’t receive “gender affirming” surgery and mentally well enough to consent to such interventions.

Interestingly, Beers’ wrote of a December 2024 counseling session in which Richardson was “clinically stable…with no remarkable symptoms of depression or anxiety.”

Judge Young did not take this testimony as evidence Richardson is doing perfectly well without a faux vagina. Instead, he doubled down on Ettner’s perspective — that Richardson’s stability simply confirms he can consent to transgender surgery.

I’m not the only one concerned about Young’s decision making. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita appealed the ruling in October.

“[The Eighth Amendment doesn’t require] the state to provide experimental treatments generally, and it certainly doesn’t here, when multiple doctors have said this inmate is a poor candidate for surgery,” he argues.

Rokita doubled down on his stance this week, telling Fox:

In his order, Young writes he will extend the preliminary injunction until Richardson gets his surgery. That means taxpayers are still on the hook, unless the Indiana Court of Appeals overturns Young’s ruling first.

Please pray common sense — and speed — will have their day in Indiana soon.

Additional Articles and Resources

Indiana AG Appeals Ruling in Case of Gender-Confused Felon

Taxpayers Will Fund Violent Inmate’s Transgender Surgery, Judge Rules

Activist Group WPATH Influences Judgement in Case of Prisoner Receiving Trans Surgery

Suicidal or Stable? WPATH Activist’s Contradictory Evaluation Secures Felon Transgender Surgery

The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’

The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’