By Nate Raymond
Feb 17 (Reuters) - Two major medical groups filed lawsuits on Tuesday accusing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission of launching investigations into them concerning their support of gender-affirming care for transgender youth as part of an effort by President Donald Trump's administration to retaliate against them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society filed separate lawsuits in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging demands the FTC made last month that they turn over an array of information as part of what the groups called an unconstitutional effort to punish them for their support for treating transgender youth and to silence them.
The groups called the FTC's document demands overbroad and said they were issued to intimidate them in violation of the U.S. Constitution's protections against government abridgment of free speech after earlier disagreements with the Trump administration.
"Unable to prevail in the marketplace of ideas, the FTC has resorted to burdening AAP with an intrusive and expensive investigation that is unconstitutional and outside the scope of the FTC's statutory authority," AAP alleged in its lawsuit, which seeks a judicial order blocking the document request as unconstitutional.
The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FTC is a federal agency that enforces various antitrust and consumer protection laws.
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It issued a civil investigative demand, akin to a subpoena, on January 15 to AAP as part of a probe into whether it made false claims or engaged in unfair practices in connection with the marketing and advertising of "pediatric gender dysphoria treatment," according to court papers.
Gender dysphoria is the clinical diagnosis for significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and sex at birth.
The Endocrine Society, which represents doctors who specialize in conditions related to hormones, said it received a similar civil investigative demand on January 20.
The FTC's demands came nearly a year after Trump in January 2025 signed executive orders that declared the United States would recognize only two sexes, male and female, and directed agencies to end all federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for minors.
In its Tuesday lawsuit, AAP said the FTC was targeting it to punish it for a 2018 policy statement the group issued related to gender-affirming care, stating its backing for appropriate medical interventions to support transgender youth.
Three days before the FTC's document demand, a federal judge blocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from terminating nearly $12 million in grant funding awarded to the AAP that was canceled after it clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his changes to vaccine policy.
AAP is pursuing a separate lawsuit challenging efforts by federal health regulators under Kennedy to reshape vaccine policy in ways it says will lower immunization rates, harming public health.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham and Ethan Smith)
