Department of Justice attorneys have recently been directed to investigate sex-change procedures for minors as suspected cases of female genital mutilation, according to a leaked internal memo issued by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Existing U.S. laws categorize female genital mutilation on any person under age 18 as a felony, with a maximum sentence of ten years per count. The attorney general argues that the felony can apply to doctors who perform gender-reassignment surgeries on children or provide hormone replacement therapy. The FBI defines female genital mutilation as the “partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
Bondi signed the memo on Tuesday before it was obtained and released by journalist Chris Geidner on his Substack blog a day later. The DOJ did not respond to National Review’s request for comment.
“The Department of Justice will not sit idly by while doctors, motivated by ideology, profits, or both, exploit and mutilate our children,” Bondi wrote. “Under my watch, the Department will act decisively to protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of care. I am putting medical practitioners, hospitals, and clinics on notice.”
In the memo, prominent detransitioner Chloe Cole is cited as an example of a young girl who was misled by the medical community’s push for gender ideology.
“That ideology, pushed by far-left politicians, celebrities, politically captured academics, and legacy media, has infected an entire generation of children, who have in turn pushed transgenderism on their peers through social media and other means,” the document reads.
Additionally, the Trump appointee orders U.S. attorneys to “investigate and hold accountable medical providers and pharmaceutical companies that mislead the public about the long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilations.” For instance, she directed the DOJ’s Civil Division Fraud Section to look into medical providers who are defrauding federal health-care programs by submitting false payment claims for transgender-related services that are not covered.
“Examples include but are not limited to physicians prescribing puberty blockers to a child for an illegitimate reason (e.g, gender dysphoria) but reporting a legitimate purpose (i.e., early onset puberty) to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and hospitals performing surgical procedures to remove or modify a child’s sex organs while billing Medicaid for an entirely different procedure,” the memo states.
“Falsely billing the government for the chemical or surgical mutilation of a child is a violation of the False Claims Act and is subject to treble damages and severe penalties,” it adds.
Last year, pediatric nurse Vanessa Sivadge uncovered evidence of Medicaid fraud at Texas Children’s Hospital. She accused the hospital of using Texas Medicaid to finance cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors. After coming forward last summer, she was fired by the Houston-based medical facility.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told states to not use Medicaid funds for so-called gender-affirming care for minors.
Bondi’s directive follows President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to restrict minors’ access to transgender procedures by prohibiting federal funding and withholding grants from medical institutions that perform such practices. The executive order has been temporarily blocked from taking effect, however, after two federal judges took action.