The FTC has a month left for the public comments regarding gender-affirming care for minors. And then after the period is over we wait for the news.
In honor of Trans-Identifying People worldwide, I will be edging until then, at which point I will release the biggest cooooooooooooom of my life.
/sneed
And I realize you asked a bit about the FTC’s potential effects here a while ago, but I don’t really have an answer. I’m not sure everything the FTC does, simply that in my own career, they regulate a lot of what I do, and mistakes are very expensive. I have to stop what I’m doing and make sure I’m in compliance with FTC rules every day; you do not want them breathing down your neck like that. That said, I’m grateful for their oversight.
The big issue I see is that “Gender Affirming Care” isn’t its own industry with its own regulations, it’s mostly part of the medical industry, but then what do you do about peripheral crap that claims to be part of “GAC”; like do we consider a binder a “medical device” now, or is it just a specialty bra? Bras are not regulated like medical devices are, but if you start selling a bra and advertising untrue things about how people will just know you’re a man now, I don’t even know where to begin with that. So much of it is so new that they’re going to have to actually answer the question, can a person change their biological sex? They cannot, and the FTC will have to start cracking down on medical professionals who advertise that you can. If we don’t outright ban trans surgeries ever for adults, then the FTC will have to determine the rules on what is said and how GAC is advertised. You will probably not be able to call it a “sex change operation” for example, and while that term is no longer in favor, it’s used commonly enough that you should expect to see fines in the tens of thousands of dollars if a doctor calls it a “sex change” when consulting patients.
And that’s just what we’d expect to see happen on the doctor side, I have no idea at all what will happen when trans activists with material connections to GAC-and-periphery providers/suppliers are out there saying that men can become women. If the FTC determines that is not a statement that can be made in advertising, and then they also start cracking down on undisclosed ads, it could be a huge mess, and I really don’t envy the staff at the FTC who will have to figure it all out, but oh YESSSSSSSS I am looking forward to the consequences. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FTC has to put together a special task force/working group to deal with trans bullshit on top of their normal work.