Lauren Moye, FISM News
The Florida Board of Medicine voted, almost unanimously, to advance a new rule for public debate that bans transgender treatments on minors.
All but one of the 15-member board voted on Friday to initiate the rule-making process that could result in a ban against physicians prescribing surgical and hormone-based transitioning services to minors under the age of 18.
The move, initiated by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, is the latest decision by the conservative administration that has enraged LGBTQ activists.
Ladapo heralded the recommendations ahead of the vote as being “aligned with the truth.”
“By truth, I mean truth in science, in terms of what we actually know versus what people want to happen,” Ladapo said. “I feel like this is a recurring theme. Unfortunately, it is a recurring theme where we are seeing political beliefs overtake scientific reasoning, scientific data.”
In April, the Florida Department of Health released a memo highlighting a lack of evidence that hormonal treatments were safe for kids. Because of this, the department stated such treatments were “experimental.” The Department of Health petitioned board members to vote on a possible rule change.
Both Ladapo and DeSantis have advocated for a total ban of sex-transitioning surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormonal replacement therapies for minors.
“I think these doctors need to get sued for what’s happening [with experimental transgender services to minors,]” DeSantis said on March 2 in Brevard County.
Now, a multi-month campaign across the state will gather public opinions. The state has not yet announced a start date for the campaign.
However, board chairman David Diamond said that initiating the rule-making process does not mean all the language of the Department of Health memo will be endorsed in the end.
Vice Chairman Kevin Cairns cast the lone dissenting vote at the meeting.
“As a board, we have to be sensitive to a stigma as a Board that we may cause by completely denying care,” Cairns said.
The petition also asked that adults who seek gender-affirming care should undergo a 24-hour waiting period before being provided treatment.
Board members exited the meeting through a backdoor after the vote due to the large presence of pro-gender-transition advocates from Equality Florida, who held a press conference right before the board meeting. A Florida Department of Health spokesperson said the Board members have been consistently threatened since the original petition, Florida Politics reported.
The threats are just one symptom of outrage in the transgender population. Florida is one of 20 states who are pursuing a similar ban or already attempted it.
In response to similar government actions, prominent transgender activist Eli Erlick recently pledged to distribute hormone therapy drugs to minors in an illegal drug distribution scheme.
Chloe Cole, a 17-year-old biological girl who formerly transitioned to a boy, told Florida legislators this summer that medical professionals often do not consider the cost to children’s overall physical and mental health, making them collateral damage of the growing gender ideology trend.
“I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,” Cole told Florida legislators. “I was unknowingly physically cutting off from my true self, from my body, irreversibly and painfully.”
Meanwhile, the FDA just added a new warning for some puberty blockers for a potential link with pseudotumor cerebri, caused by elevated fluid pressure in the brain, especially among girls under the age of 12.