People around the FTC on July 9th may have noticed something a little… unusual. A digital billboard truck was circling the premises, displaying messages encouraging the FTC to adjust their focus away from vulnerable children, and take a closer look at pressing issues that are actually issues. Fight for the Future is doing what they do: being loud about issues that matter, and not letting power brokers off easily.
Fight for the Future is a collective of regular humans who have devoted themselves to activism, and they’ve made it their personal mission to advocate for queer and trans kids as more and more legislation continues to put these children at risk. This time, they called out the FTC, asking them to leave trans kids alone and instead focus on what’s happening with Big Tech, bringing down grocery prices, and the dangers posed by data brokers who don’t respect the right to privacy. Fight for the Future hired a billboard truck to circle the FTC, ensuring that they got the message ahead of a planned workshop held by the FTC on gender-affirming care for trans kids.
If you’re wondering why on earth the FTC is hosting such workshops… welcome to the whole point of the matter. The Federal Trade Commission is tasked with protecting consumers and promoting competition and has zero place in telling the public how to care for trans children. Fight for the Future has raised concerning points about a federal agency that is devoted to commerce sticking its nose into how the nation discusses gender-affirming care for children who need such things.
Fight for the Future held a counter-event during the FTC’s workshop in partnership with Public Knowledge, LGBT Tech, and other advocates, calling out the misuse of the FTC. They’ve been firm in communicating that the FTC is being weaponized against trans kids and their families, and have been showcasing the ways that the current administration’s FTC is ignoring their actual responsibilities to consumers who are counting on them, in favor of letting wealthy power players push a personal agenda.
If you’re wondering why the FTC is hosting such a workshop in the first place, join the club. But all signs point toward the workshop being an intended distraction from failures on a federal level to investigate what the billionaires in the tech industry have been up to.
Sarah Philips, a campaigner at Fight for the Future, has said: “FTC Chairman Ferguson has made it abundantly clear that he hates trans people, and his irrational cruelty is clouding his judgment and ability to perform his job. This so-called ‘workshop’ is wildly out of the scope of the FTC—which, as an agency, should never get in between a person and the decisions they make with their doctor. What the FTC is doing is conducting a huge showboating waste of resources, aimed to punch down on vulnerable kids and their families. Doing stunts like this to fuel hate represents a total betrayal of every family in the United States, who rely on the FTC to focus on its actual job: protecting consumers from Big Tech, from rising grocery prices, and from privacy-destroying data brokers who don’t care who dies so long as they make a buck. Today, Chairman Ferguson is showing his true colors—he didn’t take the FTC chair to protect consumers, he just wants to feed the slathering maw of freaky bigots like him to gain favor with the right-wing bigots in power instead of focusing on the multitude of real problems all families face.”
Will the FTC get the message and get back to doing the work of keeping markets competitive, and making life affordable for everyday Americans? Fight for the Future intends to stay on top of making sure that they do just that.
