Florida Has Banned Gender-Affirming Care For Minors
Florida officially banned gender-affirming care for minors statewide. The Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine voted together to ban trans healthcare for youth.
The meeting, which was ridiculously broadcast via a choppy online conference from a Holiday Inn near Disney World, made it unclear as to what was happening when. Along with the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine’s unstable connection, five members were missing; the attendees often interrupted and booed, and several individuals had their microphone connections cut.
Of the people who had their mics cut, one was Kimberly Cox, a mother of a trans kid and a member of the Women’s Voices of West Florida. Sarah Parker, the president of the WVWF, spent her three minutes to comment to read off the contributions the members of the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine made to current governor Ron DeSantis. The total was $80,000 across the members.
As the Endocrine Society beautifully puts it, “Medical evidence, not politics, should inform treatment decisions.” The Endocrine Society, the world’s largest society of hormonal medicine specialists, continue saying, “The Endocrine Society is alarmed that misinformation about medical care recommended for transgender and gender-diverse adolescents is fueling efforts to limit access to gender-affirming care. The move by the Florida Board of Health to ban gender-affirming care based on a political agenda rather than on science sets a dangerous precedent for all health care decisions.”
This is true, and a real problem. By instating these rules, Florida has put trans youth at a real risk. One in four trans kids attempt suicide. That is a quarter of trans youth and absolutely unacceptable. Instead of treating this with the medical respect and knowledge that it needed to be addressed with, the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine have put the lives of countless children and teenagers at risk just for political gain.
The public comment period lasts for 13 more days, as November 10.
