The Trump administration’s crusade against the trans and nonbinary communities has reached into the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with the FCC announcing that it’s seeking to overhaul of the TV ratings system to flag the “promotion” of “controversial gender identity issues.”

“Parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents,” the FCC said in its public notice of the new inquiry, reported by The Guardian.

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The notice invoked Congress’ role in 1996, establishing the system that breaks down ratings for children into TV-Y, TV-Y7, and TV-G designations, decades before gender identity became a right-wing fixation.

“Consistent with Congress’ vision for the ratings system, we seek comment on whether the industry’s approach is continuing to provide the information that is relevant to parents today,” the FCC’s announcement continued.

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The notice posed two questions the FCC says parents should now be asking: “Are parents aware that children watching programs rated TV-Y, TV-Y7 and TV-G may contain the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes? Should such programming be rated differently or contain relevant descriptions so that parents can make informed decisions?”

The FCC also wants to revisit the different standards originally imposed on legacy broadcast networks versus streaming and other digital services today. Doing so would essentially enable the federal government to act as a “gender police” force, tagging trans and nonbinary representation across the entire media landscape.

Brendan Carr, Trump’s handpicked activist FCC chair, has already used the agency to promote Trump’s political agenda and clamp down on perceived enemies. Last September, Carr put networks on notice to silence voices at odds with the administration’s views on the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said in a threat to networks over licensing the outlets. ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show in the aftermath, before a free-speech backlash had him back on the air within the week.

Similarly in March, Carr threatened outlets over “hoaxes and news distortions” in their coverage of the war on Iran. “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he wrote, reposting a Truth Social tirade by Trump that accused the “Fake News Media” of “misleading” coverage of his so-called Middle East excursion.

The authoritarian threat was widely panned, even by Republicans. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was moved to say of the intimidation: “I do not like the heavy hand of government, no matter who’s wielding it.”

Carr may find broader support for his latest warning, however, with Republicans still exploiting an obsession with gender identity among Trump and his loyalist base.

In February, a parade of Republican lawmakers attacked outgoing Netflix chair Ted Sarandos over “transgender ideology” in the streamer’s programming, when he testified about Netflix’s potential takeover of Warner Bros./Discovery.

“I don’t want my kids being pushed an agenda about their sexuality or gender identity when I have not had the opportunity first to discuss it with them and to form them in that,” virulently anti-trans Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (MO) told Sarandos.

“And frankly, on behalf of parents around the country, it offends me that Netflix is pushing this content at parents in what seems to be a very coordinated, thought-through, planned-out agenda,” Hawley added.

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