The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is asking followers on social media to report healthcare providers they suspect of performing gender-affirming surgeries on minors, a move that will likely result in a chilling effect, further jeopardizing young people’s access to necessary healthcare.  

On Monday, June 2, the bureau’s official X account shared a post asking followers to “help the FBI protect children.”

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Attorney General threatens doctors with 10 years in prison for providing gender-affirming care
She said she would prosecute it as “female genital mutilation,” not explaining how that would work.

“As the Attorney General has made clear, we will protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of gender-affirming care,” the post read. “Report tips of any hospitals, clinics, or practitioners performing these surgical procedures on children at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov.”

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While gender-affirming care, which encompasses a range of both surgical and nonsurgical treatments, has been endorsed by every major American medical association and leading world health authority as evidence-based, safe, and in some cases lifesaving for transgender minors, surgical intervention is rarely performed on minors and is not recommended prior to puberty.

Trans rights advocate and civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo cites a 2024 report from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which found that most gender-affirming surgeries performed on trans teens under 18 are chest-related “top surgeries,” and that such procedures are rare.

That’s significant, Caraballo notes in her analysis for The Dissident, because the Trump administration is relying on 18 U.S.C. §116, a federal statute outlawing female genital mutilation (FGM), as its pretext for going after providers of gender-affirming surgeries. In his January 28 anti-trans executive order, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” President Donald Trump called for the Department of Justice to prioritize enforcement of §116. And in April, Attorney General Pam Bondi cited the statute in a memo directing “all U.S. Attorneys to investigate all suspected cases of FGM—under the banner of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ or otherwise—and to prosecute all FGM offenses to the fullest extent possible.”

However, as Caraballo notes, §116 explicitly defines FGM as “any procedure performed for non-medical reasons that involves partial or total removal of, or other injury to, the external female genitalia.” Caraballo warns that while it would be extremely difficult to make the legal argument that top surgeries — which do not involve genitalia and are “carried out by medical professionals in a manner endorsed by every major medical association” — fall under this statute, that likely won’t stop the Trump administration from launching legally dubious investigations.

The threat of federal criminal investigations will also likely result in a chilling effect even among providers in states with laws protecting access to gender-affirming care for minors.

“Federal law supersedes state protections,” Caraballo warns. “By invoking a federal criminal statute, the FBI could investigate and prosecute providers anywhere, even in states with strong legal protections. This amounts to a federal override of state healthcare policy and creates a chilling effect across the country.”

“This is not about legitimate law enforcement, but rather a blatant attempt at intimidating healthcare providers and forcing clinics to halt care even in states where it remains legal,” Caraballo writes. “Worse yet, the FBI was deeply involved in protecting gender affirming care clinics from death and bomb threats over the last three years. Not only will the FBI go after clinics, they will most certainly abandon efforts to investigate threats made to clinics and providers.”

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