FTC, states sue WPATH over claims on gender-affirming care

The Federal Trade Commission and four states sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health in Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday, accusing the group of helping providers make false and unsubstantiated claims to parents about gender-affirming care for children.

The complaint from Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas said WPATH’s standards of care gave medical providers a framework to market puberty blockers, hormones and sex-change surgeries as safe, necessary and effective when the agency says the evidence does not support those claims. The FTC also alleged that WPATH’s 2022 standards omitted age limitations for breast amputation or penis removal, and said the case involves violations of the FTC Act.

The legal fight places a little-known professional association at the center of a larger battle over who defines acceptable treatment for transgender patients. WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, is an international professional and educational nonprofit that publishes the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People. Its current version, SOC-8, was released on September 15, 2022. The group says it promotes the highest standards of health care through clinical standards, and its history page says it was founded in 1979 as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association before taking the WPATH name.

The FTC had already rejected WPATH’s petition to quash a civil investigative demand tied to its probe into false or unsubstantiated representations about pediatric gender dysphoria treatment. WPATH responded by suing the agency on February 18, 2026, in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to stop the investigation and arguing that the government was mounting an “all-of-government campaign” against gender-affirming care.

WPATH has said its guidelines are grounded in scientific standards, expert consensus and patient-centered values. It has also argued that the government’s actions threaten medical autonomy and First Amendment rights. The new lawsuit intensifies that conflict, with consumer-protection authorities now challenging the standards that insurers, hospitals and doctors have relied on as a clinical reference for transgender care. If legal pressure weakens those guidelines, the effect could reach far beyond one organization and reshape care access for minors nationwide.