Look, I get it. I was a holdout on bidets. Like most Americans, I didn’t grow up with one. I hadn’t tried it, but didn’t like the idea of jets of water pointed at my keister.

And then I moved into a house that already had one installed, and became a convert in less than a week. Turns out that the French, the Japanese, and the self-righteous citizens of South Park were correct, and I was wrong. I now feel extra-clean, all the time. But here’s the problem: A large percentage of American bathrooms don’t have a power outlet easily accessible from the toilet. This includes my new front bathroom. Which means a lot of the best bidet models, the ones with heat and lights and fans and fancy doo-dads, are inaccessible to me.

The Tushy Classic 3.0 is a great option for that problem in particular. I didn’t really need all that to begin with, to have a clean bottom. For a lot less money, a company called Tushy specializes in bidet attachments that don’t require electricity. They instead hook in easily to the room-temperature water hose that connects to your toilet tank. Analog knobs control the water jets.It slips under your existing toilet seat for extra-easy installation, and right now, it’s also on sale for less than $100.

My colleague Nena Farrell tested this model for well over a year, and said that while she noted a few cracks on some of the rotating flanges inside of the housing (which you have to remove to even see), hers is still going strong. Note also that the Classic comes in a few colors, but there’s a chance it won’t exactly match your existing toilet.

The Classic is not the model I’ve tested, however. I have an updated model of the Wave, whose O.G. model is also on sale for a hefty discount on Prime Day, just $141. The Wave actually replaces your existing toilet seat, with a couple different shapes depending on the shape of your toilet bowl. (Make sure to check whether your toilet is “round” or “elongated” for proper fit.)

ByteDance unveiled Seedance 2.5 on Tuesday at its Volcano Engine FORCE conference in Beijing, a video generation model that produces 30-second clips at native 4K resolution from a single prompt. The company skipped four intermediate versions entirely, jumping straight from its predecessor to signal what it described as a generational leap.

An enterprise beta is already live, with public launch targeted for early July. CEO Liang Rubo told the conference that climbing the AI summit is the company’s top priority, with its model-as-a-service business evolving into a foundational operation backed by long-term investment.

The headline upgrade is reference capacity: the model accepts up to 50 multimodal inputs, including images, audio clips, 3D white models, and style references, up from 12 in its predecessor. Those inputs give Seedance 2.5 far more granular control over style, motion, and composition than a text prompt alone.

The model generates at 4K natively rather than upscaling from a lower resolution, a distinction that matters for professional production pipelines. It supports 10-bit colour depth for smoother gradients and more room for post-production colour grading. ByteDance also claims 20 percent better prompt adherence, meaning fewer generations before a usable result.

Audio is now co-processed within the same latent space as visual signals, producing native synchronisation between onscreen actions and their corresponding sound effects. A new 3D white-box preview function lets creators generate low-fidelity animations before committing to a full-quality render. Together, the features position the model as a production tool rather than a novelty generator.

The announcement comes three months after ByteDance was forced to add watermarking and IP guardrails to Seedance 2.0 following cease-and-desist letters from Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount, and Netflix. A viral deepfake of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt on a rooftop drew a formal complaint from the Motion Picture Association and a rebuke from SAG-AFTRA.

ByteDance paused the global rollout in mid-March and did not resume it through CapCut until late March, with face-blocking filters, C2PA watermarks, and copyrighted character detection in place. No timeline has been offered for making the new model available in the United States.

The competitive context has shifted dramatically since February. OpenAI shut down Sora in March after the video tool peaked at roughly one million users and reportedly cost about a million dollars a day to operate, generating just over two million dollars in total revenue.

Google’s Veo 3.1 has filled much of the vacuum, offering native 4K output, audio generation, and up to three reference images for style control. But the new ByteDance model substantially exceeds Veo’s reference input capacity, accepting 50 inputs to Veo’s three, a gap that matters for professional workflows.

The AI video generation market has fragmented rapidly, with Chinese models moving faster on production tooling than Western competitors. Third-party platforms like Reallusion’s AI Studio have already built professional pipelines around the predecessor model, and Runway’s fourth-generation tool has dropped out of the Artificial Analysis top 10.

Whether the new model can reach global markets without reigniting the copyright battles that stalled its predecessor remains the central question. ByteDance has the model, the distribution through CapCut’s 400 million monthly active users, and the vertical integration from generation to editing to sharing. What it does not yet have is a settlement with Hollywood, and every feature that makes the model more capable also raises the stakes of that unresolved conflict.

The White House is drastically shortening the deadline for government agencies and organizations to adopt new quantum-resistant encryption systems that will withstand attacks that use quantum computers, as the federal government seeks to protect decades’ worth of secrets belonging to militaries, banks, governments, and most individuals on Earth.

The executive order, titled Securing the Nation against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks, requires computing systems for “high-value assets” and “high-impact systems” to transition to post-quantum cryptographic key establishment schemes by December 31, 2030, and to quantum-safe digital signature schemes by December 31, 2031.

Heading off a significant threat

The new deadline, which for many organizations is about five years sooner than the previous one, comes on the heels of recent research showing that the resources and cost for building a cryptographically relevant quantum computer are far less than previous consensus estimates. In response, Google, Cloudflare, and other companies recently tightened their timelines for moving off vulnerable systems to 2029.

“The advent of large-scale quantum computers, particularly in the hands of adversaries, will pose a significant threat to widely used cryptographic security systems,” Monday’s executive order stated. “Ongoing cyber activity against our Nation also presents the risk of adversaries collecting United States information now, and decrypting it later once large-scale quantum computers are operational.”

Under a timeline the National Security Agency published in 2022, “National Security Systems”—a class including only defense and intelligence systems under the authority of the agency—were under orders to be quantum-ready between 2030 and 2033. Most other organizations had until 2035 to complete the transition. Now, many of them will be required to transition much sooner.

“So, for any system that falls into this new bucket of high-value assets and high-impact systems, their transition timelines just got shortened by 4-5 years (from 2035 to 2030/2031),” Brian LaMacchia, a cryptography engineer who oversaw Microsoft’s post-quantum transition from 2015 to 2022 and now works at Farcaster Consulting Group, told Ars. “That is a significant shortening of the transition timeline for these systems, and it follows similar timeline revisions from Google and Cloudflare that we saw announced back in late March/early April.”

Across the United States, K-12 schools have spent the past decade building one-to-one device programs. These initiatives have established an essential baseline for digital access, making it easier for students to complete daily schoolwork across grade levels and subjects. By putting a device in the hands of every learner, districts have created a standard foundation for digital literacy, research and everyday classroom engagement.

As STEM programs continue to grow and mature, however, school leaders are beginning to encounter new questions about how well those devices support more advanced coursework. Pathways in fields like robotics, engineering, cybersecurity and data science increasingly rely on specialized professional applications that reach well beyond general-purpose classroom software.

In many cases, students can successfully complete introductory work on school-issued devices. But as instruction progresses, the tools required for STEM programs place different demands on student computing resources. As a result, educators and technology directors are taking a closer look at how hardware capacity can keep pace with shifting curricular needs.

STEM Tools and Computing Demands

While web-based applications work well for introductory coursework and daily assignments, many expanding STEM pathways introduce entirely different technical requirements. Courses in engineering, 3D modeling, cybersecurity and data science rely on industry-standard applications that demand substantial local computing capacity, robust memory and dedicated graphics processing.

A prime example is SolidWorks, a professional computer-aided design (CAD) platform used in both higher education and engineering industries. When students build detailed, multi-part models or run stress-test simulations, the performance of the device they’re using directly affects how efficiently they can work. Insufficient hardware can lead to severe rendering delays, software lag or sudden crashes that disrupt the entire classroom flow. 

This reality highlights a practical procurement consideration for districts: As STEM curricula mature beyond basic web-browsing activities, classroom devices must have sufficient local processing power to keep up.

A Robotics Program in Practice

To see how these hardware dynamics play out in a real classroom, consider the experience of the Firebots robotics team at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California. The team competes each year in the FIRST Robotics Competition, a global program where students design, build and program large robots to complete complex engineering challenges under tight, real-world constraints.

The work inside a competitive robotics program closely mirrors a commercial engineering environment, spanning mechanical design, fabrication, electrical systems and software development. Students use CAD tools to design components from scratch, test digital iterations and refine mechanisms on a tight competition timeline.

To support this technical workflow, the Firebots use ASUS TUF Gaming laptops. In robotics programs like this, student devices are not just tools for looking up information; they are central workbenches used across multiple stages of the design process. Students rely on them for modeling, code compilation, data logging, documentation and coordination among subteams.

Reliable on-device performance eliminates a common source of classroom friction. When software runs consistently and responsively, students can spend their limited class time troubleshooting their designs rather than troubleshooting their devices. Free from technical slowdowns and long file loads, they can focus on testing solutions and iterating on ideas. Ultimately, the Firebots’ systematic approach and focus on execution earned the company the FIRST Excellence in Engineering Award, which recognizes strong engineering design and system integration.

What This Means for STEM Instruction

The experience of programs like the Firebots raises a broader question for school leaders and instructional technology directors: How should district-wide device strategies evolve as STEM instruction becomes more technically demanding?

One-to-one computing programs continue to serve as the foundation for most day-to-day classroom learning, providing the baseline connectivity and performance needed for a modern education. At the same time, STEM courses can reveal distinct moments where standardized, general-purpose devices reach the limits of demanding software and workflow requirements.

In many districts, this variation is already being managed through a mix of approaches. Some schools rely on shared physical lab spaces equipped with higher-performance workstations dedicated to specialized software. Others use cloud-based streaming solutions where possible, while reserving more resource-intensive local applications for specific instructional settings.

The goal is not to dismantle existing one-to-one initiatives, but to recognize where a single hardware standard may limit technical pathways. As STEM education continues to expand and diversify, school leaders find themselves balancing the competing priorities of deployment consistency, procurement cost and instructional fit. In this changing landscape, device planning is no longer treated as a separate IT purchasing decision. Instead, it is increasingly part of a larger conversation about how schools design learning environments that accurately reflect the kinds of hands-on work students are being asked to do.

Animation in 4K is its own unique experience. The format’s exceptional clarity and expanded color palette can elevate the beauty and wonder of stories too out-there for live action. Ultra HD can occasionally expose the limitations of the medium, including choppy legacy line art, but it ultimately remains a definitive showcase for the art form. By unlocking explosive HDR highlights and a wider color gamut, 4K discs can breathe new life into both classic hand-drawn animation and state-of-the-art digital work, freeing vintage hues from past technical constraints. Today’s filmmakers, meanwhile, exploit these advances with an impact that was once impossible to achieve at home.

Five recent disc releases remind us exactly what the format can do. All feature native 4K presentations. Four include Dolby Vision, while one relies entirely on standard dynamic range to make its case.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment)

Video game adaptations have come a long way from their misguided baby steps, as evidenced by both live-action entries such as A Minecraft Movie and Illumination’s animated take on the Mario universe. This even glossier follow-up to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie expands an already impressive core cast of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Jack Black with Brie Larson, Benny Safdie, and Glen Powell for a spectacular rescue mission that takes the gang across the cosmos.

Visually, though, Galaxy pushes the envelope by shifting the action from the sunny Mushroom Kingdom to the dark reaches of outer space, requiring a completely different lighting approach. Glowing Lumas and floating Star Bits cast vibrant colors across the characters and environments, while specular highlights on the slick metal spaceships create sharp reflections that give the animation an advanced sheen. Individual threads and weave patterns are visible on costumes, the backgrounds boast a massive jump in rendering complexity, and motion blur remains tightly controlled, like a next-generation game engine running at maximum capacity.

The Dolby Atmos mix uses discrete steering and aggressive height-channel placement to pan spaceships and debris effortlessly around the room. This hyperkinetic soundfield is anchored by authoritative, subwoofer-testing low end and a massive orchestral score that spreads wide into the surrounds, all while keeping dialogue pristine. There are a few basic extras, but skip them and just rewatch the movie in awe.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (June 16, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 2026
• ASPECT RATIO: 2.39:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: Dolby Atmos with TrueHD 7.1 core
• LENGTH: 98 mins.
• MPAA RATING: PG
• DIRECTORS: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
• STARRING: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Donald Glover, Keegan-Michael Key

Our Ratings

Where to buy:

Alice in Wonderland (Disney/Sony)

Shifting from the newest to the oldest movie in this batch, Walt Disney’s 1951 adaptation combines elements from both Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. While British purists complained that the sacred texts had been dumbed down, prudish Americans, surprisingly, did not object to the druggish undertones inherent in the eccentric characters and wild scenarios. In fact, they largely ignored Alice. The movie sat in the vault until the psychedelic era brought renewed interest, leading to a full theatrical re-release in 1974. It has been beloved ever since.

Timed to the film’s 75th anniversary, Walt Disney Film Restoration spent nine months restoring Alice, beginning with scans of the original nitrate successive-exposure negatives and preserving the proper 1.37:1 aspect ratio. This work was followed by extensive cleanup to address dust, warping, and other signs of age, with archival production artwork used as a reference to optimize color and luminance in every shot. Walt & Co.’s cheerier tone is reflected in an explosively vibrant palette, with pinks and blues that pop off the screen so intensely that viewers may begin to question what is real.

Alongside a lossy two-channel mono track, the disc includes a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix that feels modern while remaining faithful to the original, with particularly strong fidelity in the songs. All of the extras are housed on the bundled HD Blu-ray, including an excellent picture-in-picture mode and a deep selection of vintage and retrospective programs, along with behind-the-scenes material.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: Disney/Sony
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (May 5, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1951
• ASPECT RATIO: 1.37:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• LENGTH: 75 mins.
• MPAA RATING: G
• DIRECTORS: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
• STARRING: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton

Our Ratings

Where to buy:

Fire and Ice (Blue Underground/MVD)

Two titans joined forces for a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration when the singular fantasy artist Frank Frazetta teamed with celebrated animator Ralph Bakshi to create the original screen adventure, Fire and Ice. In a savage prehistoric world, the buff warrior Larn and mysterious masked avenger Darkwolf embark on a perilous quest to rescue Princess Teegra from the evil ice lord Nekron, whose advancing glaciers threaten to consume the world.

To capture the look of a Frazetta painting brought to life while maintaining realistic anatomy, Bakshi relied on rotoscoping, a process pioneered by Max Fleischer decades earlier. Live-action performers were filmed, then each frame was painstakingly traced and painted. The backgrounds, meanwhile, were largely created by a young Thomas Kinkade, whose name was misspelled in the credits. Long before becoming “The Painter of Light” and the head of a multimillion-dollar art empire, Kinkade experimented here with a luministic, chiaroscuro style that draws the eye through small bursts of light and color. His brushstrokes and the texture of the line art are fully preserved in the 4K, 16-bit scan, while the occasional static foreground “fog” adds depth to the main action.

The new Atmos reconfiguration is remarkably strong, with fluid placement of effects across the soundfield: arrows zip past pterodactyls, swords land with heavy clangs, and the mix builds on Blue Underground’s previous 6.1 and 7.1 remixes. The original stereo track is also included, along with 5.1 audio, all in DTS-HD Master Audio. William Kraft’s score adds a visceral, primal pulse and is included here on a 70-minute, 21-track CD.

New featurettes spotlight Frazetta’s granddaughter, Sara Frazetta, and superfan filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, alongside a strong collection of legacy content that includes a Bakshi audio commentary. The SteelBook packaging is especially elegant: a clear plastic slip carries the title and logos on the front, with the usual disc information on the back. Remove it, and Frank Frazetta’s poster art is left unobstructed, with animation art displayed on the reverse.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: Blue Underground/MVD
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (June 30, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1983
• ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: Dolby Atmos with TrueHD 7.1 core
• LENGTH: 82 mins.
• MPAA RATING: PG
• DIRECTOR: Ralph Bakshi
• STARRING: Randy Norton, Cynthia Leake, Steve Sandor, Sean Hannon, Leo Gordon, William Ostrander

Our Ratings

Where to buy:

Perfect Blue (GKIDS/Shout! Factory/Radial Entertainment)

Perfect Blue is smart and sophisticated enough to have worked as a live-action psychological thriller, and in fact it almost was before first-time director Satoshi Kon turned it into one of the most influential anime films ever made. The story follows young Mima’s transition from pop idol to aspiring television actress, a journey filled with unexpected hurdles that soon leads her down a dark path where she begins to question her own sanity. This unrated cut can get rough, with murder, sexual violence, and a stalker all driving the story toward a major twist that I did not see coming.

Although it was originally greenlit as a modest direct-to-video release, the production quality far exceeds the assignment. The hand-drawn, hand-painted artwork delivers nuanced characters and richly detailed backgrounds, particularly in its Tokyo cityscapes. Kon’s masterful camerawork, lingering film grain, and occasional dirt combine to create a genuinely cinematic feel, capturing a twilight moment just before the industry shifted more decisively toward digital cel animation.

The 5.1 track is unlike any other mix in this lineup: punchy, aggressive, and full of discrete left and right cues, with hard surround activity that makes unapologetic use of the rear channels. Dialogue remains consistently crisp, although I cannot claim to understand more than a handful of Japanese phrases.

A more affordable, though still premium, alternative to last year’s collector’s edition, Shout!’s SteelBook arrives across three discs, with much of the bonus material presented in standard definition. The highlight is a series of Satoshi Kon lectures totaling roughly two hours, with English subtitles, in which he digs deeply into possible interpretations of the labyrinthine narrative, along with the film’s themes and techniques.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: GKIDS/Shout! Factory/Radial Entertainment
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (June 16, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1997
• ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1
• HDR FORMATS: n/a (SDR)
• AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (Japanese and English options)
• LENGTH: 82 mins.
• MPAA RATING: NR
• DIRECTOR: Satoshi Kon
• STARRING: Junko Iwao, Rika Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Ôkura, Yôsuke Akimoto, Yoku Shioya

Our Ratings

Where to buy:

Hoppers (Disney/Sony)

One of Pixar’s better efforts of late, Hoppers takes audiences into the animal kingdom in a whole new way. Animal-loving college student Mabel uses hush-hush technology to “hop” her consciousness into a lifelike robotic beaver body and live among the creatures of the forest. They can understand her, and she can understand them, though neither side quite knows what to make of the other. But when her passion to protect wildlife at all costs gets the better of her, she is in for a hard lesson about the real laws of nature. It is funny, there is ample cuteness afoot, and the environmental message lands without becoming obnoxious as Mabel learns that complicated problems do not always have simple answers. You know, the usual Pixar existential crisis, but with beavers.

Remember when rendering fur and feathers was a big deal? Hoppers makes it look easy, with an exceptionally clear, detailed image that takes a step beyond realism through a playful visual style that pleases the eye without straining for ultimate photorealism. Woodland colors are lush and lovely, as only Dolby Vision can deliver. Note that the 4K disc is a SteelBook-only release.

There is plenty of 360-degree and overhead audio action from the abundant creatures of air and land, along with no shortage of manmade mayhem, all underscored by serious bass kick. The hopper equipment itself features thoughtful sound design that conveys the transfer into the synthetic body, then reinforces it with subtle mechanical accents. The supplements are wholly adequate, covering the creative team’s character research, a brisk making-of featurette, a study of a key scene, plus bloopers and deleted scenes.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: Disney/Sony
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (June 2, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 2026
• ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1
• HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: Dolby Atmos with TrueHD 7.1 core
• LENGTH: 105 mins.
• MPAA RATING: PG
• DIRECTOR: Daniel Chong
• STARRING: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco

Our Ratings

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

Amgen’s Rachael Harte and Barakat Raji explore the routes towards a career in bioprocessing and how they found themselves in their current roles.

There is no one way to find yourself on the route towards a meaningful career that gives you personal and professional joy, and it is rarely a linear path. For many, it takes time and persistence to uncover the aspects of a role that are most appealing, but also to investigate avenues that perhaps you had been aware of, but had not fully considered. 

This is certainly true for Barakat Raji, a bioprocess technician at Amgen, who explained that initially, as part of her undergraduate degree, she studied subjects outside of where she would eventually end up, as a means of pushing herself and exploring what else was possible. 

She told SiliconRepublic.com, “In college, I did an undergrad in biomedical science and then I did a master’s in microbiology, which has nothing to do with production at all, but I wanted to kind of go out of my comfort zone and it worked out well.”

Upon completing her master’s in microbiology, Raji was intrigued about the potential for a career in the manufacturing space; however, it was not an area that she had extensive knowledge of, so she took the initiative to carry out her own research. 

She said, “I wanted to get to know a little more about the manufacturing world. When I did see the job on LinkedIn, I had a little look. It did pique my interest a little bit and I went in, and that is why I got into the industry.”

Of what it takes to day-to-day, she finds that the requirements change, depending on what is needed. She explained that she may need to come in and complete a handover, be involved in the filling element of manufacturing at Amgen, or prepare for filling.

Raji said, “It’s a lot of computer work as well, and if I can do it, anyone can.”

Who is it for?

Of who might best be suited to a role in manufacturing, Rachael Harte, who started out in community pharmacy and who was recently promoted to a senior associate in manufacturing position at Amgen, noted that the role doesn’t necessarily demand an all-inclusive science background from the get-go. She herself continued her studies in pharmaceutical business operations upon joining the operation. 

She said, “The type of person that this role is suited [to] is somebody who is curious about the biopharmaceutical industry, someone who is ambitious. A science background isn’t essential – somebody who enjoys teamwork and collaboration.”

In terms of what people should expect during the early days of their role at Amgen, Harte urged professionals to take advantage of the company’s robust, welcoming and open ecosystem. 

“The on-the-job training is excellent in Amgen. You have a lot of support from both your peers and management. There’s people with 30 years’ experience here. The expertise and knowledge that they’re willing to pass down to you with over 30 years’ experience, you wouldn’t get it anywhere else.”

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We’re in the midst of (a very hot) summer, and I’m sure many of you out there are raring to go on your travels this season. But if you’re about to jet off on your vacation, then it’s best to be as prepared as possible. And you know what you need to make your travels as seamless and enjoyable as possible? Some top-tier tech.

I’m a Senior Reviews Writer here at TechRadar, and have tested hundreds of gadgets over the years, from premium noise-cancelling headphones through to power banks and misting fans. So, I’ve got the lowdown on all the travel tech essentials you need to make this summer one to remember — for all the right reasons, of course.

from the the-ftc-hates-trans-rights dept

Last week the FTC decided to file an obviously censorial, legally baseless lawsuit against an educational non-profit in an attempt to punish the organization for its speech in a manner that is clearly way outside the bounds of the FTC’s authority. The case serves no purpose other than to punish an organization for its speech… and we know that because a court just told the FTC that last month.

Some of us still remember the executive order President Trump signed on the first day of his second term supposedly “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.” In theory, that EO said that no one working for the federal government was allowed to ever engage in or facilitate “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the freedom of speech” of Americans. Of course, we’ve seen many of Trump’s closest allies do exactly that throughout this administration. From FCC Chair Brendan Carr (temporarily) shutting down Jimmy Kimmel to former Attorney General Pam Bondi getting Meta & Apple to remove groups and apps she didn’t like, this administration is the most censorial in history.

And then there’s FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson. When begging Donald Trump for the job he sent a one-pager in which he promised to end what he called Lina Khan’s “politically motivated” lawsuits, but at the very same time promised his own politically motivated lawsuits: in particular attacking those who provided support and resources for transgender individuals. Hilariously, he put this promise under the heading of “protecting freedom of speech and fighting wokeness.”

Ferguson has already received a few judicial smackdowns for infringing on the First Amendment rights of organizations. Last year, there was one in the case involving Media Matters. And then last month, there was a case involving WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. WPATH is a non-profit that has been an important player in helping medical professionals understand transgender health and how to help transgender patients.

But Ferguson is apparently among those transphobes who seem absolutely obsessed about what genitalia other people have (which, I tend to believe is no one’s business but themselves, their consensual sexual partners, and their healthcare providers).

Anyway, Ferguson sent civil investigatory demands (CIDs, the FTC equivalent of a subpoena) to WPATH in January of this year. WPATH, rightly, went to court over this and won. Judge James Boasberg blasted the FTC for violating WPATH’s First Amendment rights with these bogus demands. Indeed, he pointed to the very recent Supreme Court ruling in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which our own Cathy Gellis pointed out was a strong ruling that would protect free speech in other cases. And Boasberg proved her right a week later:

WPATH has demonstrated the CID’s chilling effect on its protected speech. Its declarations describe an undercurrent of fear among staff and members following the CID: fear that “statements . . . will be misrepresented and distorted . . . if WPATH is forced to disclose internal discussions and information to the FTC,” fear that specific members will become targets, and fear that academic professionals will not openly discuss their ideas given the possibility of turnover. See ECF No. 3-6 (Scott Leibowitz Declaration), ¶¶ 38, 41; see also Radix Decl., ¶¶ 18–19 (detailing longstanding importance of confidentiality in member communications). That fear is not extrapolation to some future action: the CID demands “all Documents reflecting or constituting Communications with other organizations, institutions, or individuals regarding the development and publication of SOC 8,” and all documents “including tests, reports, studies, scientific literature, and written opinions” that WPATH relied upon to assert that pediatric-gender-dysphoria treatment is safe and effective. See CID at ECF pp. 5–6. Those two items alone encompass a vast swath of academic or research discussion in which WPATH engages. Where an agency “demands” a nonprofit’s “private member” information, it “encourage[s] groups and individuals to cease or modify protected First Amendment [activity] the government disfavors.” First Choice Women’s Res. Ctrs., Inc. v. Davenport, 608 U.S. ___, 2026 WL 1153029, at *8 (2026). The threat is all the greater when the agency seeks the substance of member communications and, in so doing, predictably stifles future speech. What is more, the CID seeks WPATH’s future communications, making the chilling effect readily discernible. See CID at ECF p. 4. WPATH is likely to succeed on this element.

The ruling is chock full of evidence that the FTC has no legitimate reason to go on this fishing expedition. And yet it has.

And, of course, this FTC doesn’t actually give a shit. It just wants to punish any pro-transgender speech. So a month after Boasberg called out how the FTC’s investigation of WPATH is obviously a violation of the First Amendment… Ferguson’s FTC decided to sue WPATH in a totally different court, this time in Fort Worth, Texas, which is where MAGA often files, knowing it’s likely to get a Trump-friendly judge who will ignore the First Amendment issues and perhaps side with the administration in support of general MAGA transphobia.

The fundamental argument is that WPATH is being unfair and deceptive to “consumers” (in this case, doctors). The evidence is that… um… [checks notes]… a number of doctors say that WPATH’s published “standards of care” [SOC] for transgender patients is useful. I only wish I were joking:

Medical professionals have also been duped. One clinician responded to the RFI by stating that “[t]he WPATH standards of care does an excellent job providing recommendations and guidelines for practices that are evidence based and expert reviewed.” Another said, “[a]s a mental health professional . . . affirming and coordinated healthcare, informed by recognized standards of care (including WPATH), provides young people and their families with stability, safety.”

OMG. Medical experts suggesting medical treatments that other doctors say is really helpful. Can’t have that! Make a federal case about it!

The FTC makes a big deal of SOC-8 (the updated standard of care doc WPATH released in 2022) as if it’s some horrible evil document. But you can read the thing yourself and realize that the FTC is lying to you. SOC-8 is quite clear that it does not advocate for specific treatment, but rather that doctors and patients determine what will be best overall for transgender patients. And, contrary to the way that transphobes characterize it, it does not push people to gender-reassignment surgery, but rather encourages doctors to make sure that patients understand their options and are mature enough to make a full decision themselves, rather than being pressured into anything.

In other words, it’s what you’d expect from a document put together over many years using a cross section of actual medical experts.

Even looking past the FTC filing what is clearly a censorial case because of their own weird gender hangups, and the fact that this is clearly a vexatious, censorial attack on WPATH’s free speech rights (as already established by one federal court), there’s another reason this case should be dead on arrival.

The FTC only has the authority to regulate commercial activity. And WPATH is a non-profit that doesn’t engage in commercial activity. TechFreedom’s Berin Szoka has a good thread on how this case should get thrown out before we even have to get to the First Amendment stuff or the merits.

Still, as with all of these kinds of cases, the process is the punishment. Ferguson doesn’t really give a shit if he wins. He just wants to make it abundantly clear that any organization that actually wants to help transgender individuals may face a vexatious investigation and/or lawsuit by the federal government.

If Donald Trump actually meant what he said in that executive order, he’d send Ferguson (and Carr) packing. But, of course, he never did. And, of course, we won’t hear a peep from any of the people who spent all four years of the Biden administration insisting that the administration was “censoring” people. It turns out none of them actually cared about free speech. They only cared about culture war and furthering their own bigotry.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, andrew ferguson, free speech, ftc, healthcare, trans rights

Companies: wpath