The FBI has launched criminal investigations into three children’s hospitals after they offered gender transition surgeries for minors in violation of federal law. The hospitals being probed, according to reports, include Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo in April directing those at the Justice Department to enforce a law making transgener surgeries illegal.
“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,” Bondi’s memo said. “That crime carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years per count. I am 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.”
“The Department will also ensure that victims and their families are able to report violations to federal law enforcement to expose violators and receive support,” Bondi’s memo added. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation, alongside federal, state, and local partners, will pursue every legitimate lead on possible FGM cases.”
The memo came months after President Trump’s executive order ending the chemical and surgical mutilation of children. “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” Trump’s order read. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”
Some hospitals, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said they will close their transgender centers.
