Anti-Trans AG Andrew Bailey Appointed To A Leadership Role At FBI

The AG behind Missouri’s anti-trans snitch line, all-ages health care crackdowns, and sweeping subpoenas of providers is now the FBI’s second-in-command.

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey - Public Record

The latest character to enter the revolving door of President Donald Trump’s federal staff is a well-known antagonist of transgender Americans. Andrew Bailey, former Missouri attorney general, has been appointed a co-deputy director of the FBI.

The current official in the role, Dan Bongino, came under fire for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case, triggering rumors about his potential future—or lack thereof—at the bureau.

This comes as legal attacks on gender-affirming care for trans people heat up at the Department of Justice.

Bailey is no stranger to the anti-trans crusade. Civil rights groups have lambasted him for what they say are repeated attempts to abuse his power to target the trans community. Bailey seeks to “corrupt our health care system” and “play politics at the expense of life-saving medical care,” said Gillian Wilcox, Deputy Director for Litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, in a press release from Bailey’s time as the Missouri AG.

In 2023, Bailey launched an investigation into Washington University in St. Louis and other providers of trans-affirming health care on drummed-up and dubious claims that gender clinics violated consumer protection laws.

In the process, Bailey sent civil investigative demands (CIDs)—which function as a kind of subpoena—to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Washington University, and state branches of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood fought the subpoena. In May, a judge partially upheld and partially blocked the legality of the CID, writing that it “was authorized under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act (MMPA)” but that data protected by federal privacy regulations (namely HIPAA) should be withheld.

In a separate attack on transgender people, Bailey launched an anti-trans snitch line to try to ensnare affirming providers, encouraging citizens to report gender care clinics. The line was instead flooded with messages of support for the trans community and anger about Missouri’s discriminatory policies.

Perhaps most troubling, however, was when he issued a (short-lived) emergency order banning trans people of all ages from accessing care unless they cleared arbitrary, unscientific and untenable hurdles designed solely to make gender-affirming care inaccessible to as many trans people as possible. The order declared that new patients could not receive gender-affirming care unless they had at least three years of documented gender dysphoria, the Missouri Independent reports. There is no evidentiary basis for this benchmark. Nonetheless, it caused widespread disruptions throughout the state as providers struggled to comply with this and other vague regulations.

Bailey's order was denounced as an “irresponsible use of political power that only serves to further disenfranchise a community that has been under attack,” according to Dr. Devon Ojeda, senior national organizer for the National Center for Transgender Equality at the time. “Transition-related care is safe and essential, and these unnecessary requirements would only inundate an already overwhelmed healthcare system.”

Under President Joe Biden, Bailey and over 20 GOP-led states sued the administration over a directive to include sexual orientation and gender identity in Title IX protections for federally funded schools. The Eastern District of Missouri granted Bailey’s motion to block the policy implementation. It was further reinforced by Trump’s own policies that functionally rewrote Title IX to exclude trans people.

Now, as Bailey steps into his new role, the DOJ is in the midst of its own campaign to terrorize trans people, parents of trans youth, and gender-affirming care providers—including through subpoenas demanding sensitive patient and clinician information, such as email exchanges, medical notes, and home addresses. At least one provider, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is challenging such a subpoena in court.

Bailey will work under FBI Director Kash Patel, the top official at the agency, at least for now.