Do No Harm just asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the American Psychological Association for deceptive practices. Once you see what the APA has been telling regulators versus what it tells its own membership, it is hard to argue they shouldn't.
One clarification first, because two different organizations share the same acronym. The American Psychiatric Association is the medical group that produces the DSM. The American Psychological Association is the one in trouble here—a 173,000-member body of clinicians, researchers, educators, and students across the mental health field, with one very confused policy shop.
Here is the contradiction Do No Harm laid out in its April 20 letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson.
In 2024, the APA put out a policy statement championing "unobstructed" access to gender-affirming care for minors. It is called non-affirmation, a form of violence and discrimination. It condemned state laws protecting children from experimental interventions as human rights violations. That is the version the activists read.
Then, in September 2025, the same APA submitted a public comment to the FTC that sounded like it was written by a different organization. Suddenly, there was a lack of long-term scientific evidence. Suddenly, a cautious, questioning approach to youth gender dysphoria was the right call. Suddenly, the APA remembered that not every child who experiences dysphoria will persist into adulthood–something clinicians who worked with gender dysphoria have known for decades and pretended not to know whenever it was inconvenient.
So which APA is telling the truth?
Dr. Kurt Miceli, Do No Harm's chief medical officer, said the APA is trying to dodge regulatory action while placating the gender activists who have, in his words, "captured the organization." Two audiences. Two stories. One obvious problem when a federal agency is reading both.
This is how institutional capture works. The activists demand the most ideological language in the public-facing policy because they need the organization's authority behind their agenda. The lawyers know none of that survives a serious evidentiary review, so they soften everything in the regulatory filing. The result is what we just saw–a medical body trying to tell Americans one thing and the federal government the opposite, hoping nobody bothers to read both documents in the same afternoon.
Somebody bothered.
And the timing matters. The FTC, under Chairman Ferguson, has already issued civil investigative demands to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The same legal theory in every case. Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits deceptive claims to consumers. Parents who were told puberty blockers were reversible, or that affirmation was the only thing keeping their kid alive, are the consumers, and they were lied to. WPATH has been flailing around trying to quash its subpoena. The AAP is on notice. The Endocrine Society's guidelines are under the same microscope.
Do No Harm is asking Ferguson to add the fourth obvious name to the list. If the APA lent its 173,000-member credibility to an affirmation-only treatment model while privately admitting to regulators that the evidence is not there, that is exactly what Section 5 was written to catch.
The organizations that pushed this on kids spent a decade telling parents the science was settled, the risks were overstated, and any hesitation was bigotry. Now, one by one, they are being asked to show their work. The APA decided to help the FTC build the case by contradicting itself in writing.
Looking forward to the FTC burning it all down.
Soad Tabrizi is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice based in Orange County, CA (www.soadtabrizi.com). Soad is also the founder of www.ConservativeCounselors.com.
