Florida’s rule to prevent minors from undergoing gender transition procedures has now taken effect, and Republican state lawmakers are moving forward with plans to further tighten restrictions.
The new Florida Board of Medicine measure, which went into effect Thursday, prohibits the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapies, or surgery to treat gender dysphoria for anyone under 18 in the Sunshine State.
While children who were already receiving gender-affirming treatment before Thursday can continue to do so, they can’t have sex reassignment surgeries under the new rule.
Separately, GOP lawmakers are currently introducing a bill in the Florida Senate that will make it a crime to provide gender-affirming care to minors and prohibit state funds from being used to cover the same care for adults. An accompanying bill has also been introduced in the House.
Before the gender ban went into effect, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his position after President Biden gave an interview saying Florida’s new rule was “almost sinful.”
“It’s terrible what they’re doing,” Biden told “The Daily Show” earlier this week. “It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I wanted to be a man’ or ‘I want to be a woman’… I mean, what are they thinking here? ?”
“It’s cruel,” the president added. DeSantis, who is expected to face Biden in 2024, responded by tweeting: “It is not ‘sinful’ to ban child mutilation. It is unacceptable for the federal government to mandate procedures such as sex reassignment operations for children to be allowed.”
The Sunshine State’s rule comes after the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine first announced in November that they had approved the new ban, prompting backlash from trans activists who argued the rule contradicted medical evidence. During tense hearings in which opponents and supporters of the ban voiced their concerns, Board of Medicine member and pediatric anesthetist Dr. Hector Vila insisted that “hundreds of studies” were reviewed as part of the review process. decision process.
He argued that “the overwhelming data do not support” the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. “This advice is not against the investigation; he is not against taking care of transgender children,” Vila added.
Florida Board of Medicine chairman Scot Ackerman said of the decision, “What the board has been trying to do is protect our children from therapies that cause irreversible harm … So it’s a very limited set of therapies that have been limited, but this advice still wants these patients to be treated, absolutely,” according to Orlando Weekly. Nationwide, a handful of other states are also passing similar measures.
Kentucky Republican lawmakers on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a new measure to ban gender-affirming assistance for transgender minors. Kentucky’s new bill also contains sweeping measures that would allow teachers to refuse to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns and prohibit schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity with students of any age.
Advocates have argued that they are trying to protect children from undergoing gender-affirming treatments that they might later regret as adults. “We’re talking about removing healthy body parts that can’t be put back,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Tichenor said. “I’ve seen the pictures. It’s awful.
Meanwhile, the Republican governor of Mississippi. Tate Reeves recently signed a bill to ban hormonal or gender-affirming surgeries in the state for anyone under the age of 18.
And this year, the Republican governors of South Dakota and Utah also signed off on bans on gender-affirming treatments.
