Trump’s FTC is spreading lies about trans people. This bill would let it wipe them off the internet

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 to protect consumers from corporate overreach. Under Donald Trump, the 110-year-old bipartisan agency is now being converted into a weapon of censorship and repression for the administration to wield against its political enemies.

Last week, the FTC hosted a “workshop” with the unambiguous goal of spreading disinformation about one of the administration’s favorite targets: trans people. The event, which was titled The Dangers of “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors, brought in a group of professional anti-LGBTQ+ bigots to air conspiracy theories and medical disinformation about trans people, with the stated mission of eliminating gender-affirming care for trans youth. Instead of doing the FTC’s actual job—protecting Americans from the excess of Big Tech companies—the workshop participants instead spent hours discussing disproven anti-trans talking points that the right continues to present as fact.

Participants called for the FTC to investigate medical providers who offer gender-affirming care to minors, under the claim that these doctors are engaged in “unfair or deceptive business practices.” Not only would this intrusion clearly overstep the FTC’s authority, it also illustrates how Trump’s FTC would weaponize proposed internet censorship laws like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to target queer and trans people and their medical providers.

Activists have repeatedly pointed out how anti-LGBTQ+ censorship would be supercharged under laws like KOSA, the “online safety” bill that Democrats and Republicans have been trying to push through Congress for years. The bill would allow the government to weaponize the FTC by giving the agency the power to pressure social media companies to remove any content that is determined to be “harmful” or “causing distress” to children.

This language is intentionally vague, and organizations like Fight for the Future have warned it could easily be used to censor anything the government doesn’t like—from online LGBTQ+ communities and medical resources to information about abortion. We’ve been here before: The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) promised to protect people online, but all it resulted in was sweeping censorship of online communities as social media companies moved to cover their own bottom line, exactly as they would act if KOSA passed.

So, who would get to decide what is “harmful” or “stressful” to kids under KOSA?

Under a previous version of the bill, lawmakers proposed allowing state attorneys general to decide what kind of content constitutes harm and should be censored—a green light to any state with laws that already discriminate against queer and trans people. The bill’s supporters—including Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and the right-wing Heritage Foundation—have explicitly stated it would enable them to “protect” kids by censoring trans content. This is in line with the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda presented in Project 2025, whose architects describe their quest to criminalize pornography and LGBTQ+ pornography as one in the same, and propose making it a crime to promote “transgender ideology”—in other words, to erase trans people from public life, and punish anyone who refuses to do so.

KOSA’s Democratic supporters nevertheless insisted the new law wouldn’t be used to censor LGBTQ+ content. But opponents of the legislation pushed back, leading to the bill being dropped twice since its first introduction in 2022. Human rights and civil rights groups have been clear: The inherent problem with KOSA is the “duty of care” built into the legislation that would encourage companies to censor content the government might take issue with.

In a newer iteration of the bill, lawmakers tried to remove this roadblock by walking back their proposal to give enforcement powers to state attorneys general. Instead, the bill now proposes giving this power to the FTC—the very same FTC that just ran an hours-long anti-trans propaganda event.

The FTC’s sham “workshop” made crystal clear that the agency would use these new censorship powers to carry out Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. Far from being neutral “experts,” the people invited to the FTC event by the Trump administration represent far-right NGOs like the Heritage Foundation, as well as groups like Moms for Liberty and Do No Harm, which have both been designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many of the participants have been paid to travel around the country giving testimony about the supposed “dangers” of LGBTQ+ healthcare, and have been directly involved in harassment campaigns against LGBTQ+ people and their allies.

The meeting’s participants parroted the repeatedly-debunked theory of “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” cited widely-discredited junk science papers, and described lifesaving medical interventions like puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormones, and surgery with sensationalist terms like “sterilization” and “mutilation.” They also repeated a deranged right-wing hoax about a “secret plot” by hospitals to forcibly transition children. These are the same lies that have been consistently amplified by the Trump administration, with the plainly stated goal of ending trans healthcare in the U.S.—not just for minors, but adults too.

In reality, gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization in the country, and there is wide scientific consensus that it overwhelmingly improves the lives of trans people. For years, studies have consistently shown that access to hormones and clinical support drastically reduces rates of depression and suicide, particularly for trans youth. The rates of regret for gender-affirming surgical procedures remain extremely small, with some studies recording it as low as 1.7% to 2.1% for minors. Further studies also show, consistently, that the small percentage of people who later “de-transition” overwhelmingly do so not because they were “tricked” into gender-affirming care, but because of external pressure and structural discrimination against trans people.

But like everything in Trumpworld, the purpose of the FTC workshop wasn’t to discuss facts or evidence. The administration purposely excluded trans patients, healthcare providers, parents, allies, and anyone else that would challenge its bigotry. At a time when the agency should be pushing back against the countless abuses of monopolistic Big Tech companies companies, the event had nothing to do with the agency’s mandate of protecting consumer rights—just like its use of laws like KOSA will have nothing to do with protecting children. Instead, it shows how Trump has transformed the agency into yet another tool of repression and propaganda to destroy the rights of queer and trans people in the U.S.

Online communities are a lifeline for many LGBTQ+ people, especially for queer and trans youth who are often in desperate search of affirming spaces. Giving the FTC censorship powers with KOSA would allow Trump to destroy these communities—as well as others used by abortion-seekers, activists, and anyone else the administration has deemed an enemy.