This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has warned "doctors" who have been doing various body mutilations on children to stop.
"I am putting medical practitioners, hospitals, and clinics on notice: In the United States, it is a felony to perform, attempt to perform, or conspire to perform female genital mutilation ('FGM') on any person under the age of 18. That crime carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years per count," Bondi said.
A report from NBC explained she directed U.S. attorneys to use those laws to investigate doctors who "mutilate" children under the guise of "care."
Transgender activists across the country repeatedly have claimed that body mutilations on children, as long as it's called "gender-affirming care" under that ideology, actually is a good thing.
Mat Staver, the chief of Liberty Counsel which has fought some of the battles on the issue of transgenderism, explained, "These common sense directives will help protect children from the harmful and often irreversible gender interventions caused by the false gender ideology.
"They will also help hold accountable those who hurt children in this way. The insanity of this ideology and greed in the medical community has monetized the act of mutilating children and adults into a billion-dollar industry. Through President Trump's executive order and this memorandum, the federal government can now return to sound science and promote treating these mental health issues with proven psychiatric therapies to heal rather than harm. Now, it is up to the federal and state legislatures to pass laws that protect children from medical mutilation."
Bondi also directed the Consumer Protection Branch of the DOJ's Civil Division "to investigate potential violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by drug manufacturers and distributors who engage 'in misbranding by making false claims about the on- or off-label use of puberty blockers, sex hormones, or any other drug used to facilitate' a minor's gender transition," the report said.
Physicians will be investigated under the False Claims Act if they submit for reimbursement for services related to "gender experimentation" that is not covered by federal programs.
Robin Maril, an assistant professor of constitutional law in Oregon, told the network it still is legal for doctors to perform those body modifying surgeries in states where such "care" remains legal, and charged that the announcement is meant "to have a chilling effect" on what she called "necessary care."
Leftist medical organizations, prominently the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association, all have claimed to support "transition-related care" for minors.
The industry, of course, is lucrative for physicians and suppliers involved.
Liberty Counsel reported the directives "align under President Donald Trump's January executive order that withdraws all federal funding for puberty blockers, hormones, or irreversible mutilating surgeries for minors, and directs rigorous enforcement of all laws to protect children from these destructive and life-altering procedures."
Bondi said the ideology has been pushed on Americans by those who "deny biological reality."
Following the science, no one can change from male to female or vice versa because being male or female is embedded in the body down to the DNA level.
Bondi said the ideology has been pushed by "the Biden administration, the medical community, Hollywood, legacy mass media, children's books, and public schools," the report said.
"This gender ideology is just 'junk science' that steers children to 'process adolescent stress and confusion' as 'mistaken identity,' and that the only solution is permanent and life-altering chemical and surgical interventions," AG Bondi wrote.
She noted how Biden 'personally advanced" the beliefs by going to court against state-level protections for children.
He also appointed "Rachel" Levine, a man who portrayed himself as a woman, as Assistant Secretary of Health.
The attorney general, in fact, noted how "politically captured profiteers" were taking advantage of families and children.
"These 'professionals' have deployed junk science and false claims about the effects of so-called 'gender-affirming care' to justify the barbaric practice of surgically and chemically maiming and sterilizing children. Between 2019 and 2023, an estimated 14,000 children received 'treatment' for gender dysphoria, with more than 5,700 subjected to life-altering surgeries. The practitioners who provided this so-called 'care' profited while their patients were left permanently disfigured, scarred, and sterilized."
