TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — A federal judge believes that a Florida rule shielding taxpayers from funding the castration and genital mutilation of children is unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle struck down the Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration’s (AHCA) rule prohibiting the use of Medicaid to fund harmful drugs and surgeries that “alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” as a solution for gender confusion.
Hinkle – a Clinton-appointee – wrote that the state’s effort to protect confused Floridians from permanently sterilizing and disfiguring themselves was motivated by “political reasons” and violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. He also asserted that the LGBTQ activists who filed the lawsuit are “entitled” to tax-payer funded sex-change operations because they constitute a “medical necessity.”
“GENDER IDENTITY IS REAL”
“The elephant in the room should be noted at the outset. Gender identity is real,” Hinkle opined in his ruling, arguing that men and women cannot “choose” how they identify.
As if he were an LGBTQ activist penning a blog post, Hinkle declares: “Any proponent of the challenged rule and statute should put up or shut up: do you acknowledge that there are individuals with actual gender identities opposite their natal sex, or do you not? Dog whistles ought not be tolerated.”
Hinkle also decried the views of Dr. Patrick Lappert, an AHCA consultant and surgeon who has argued that cutting off genitals of healthy teens under the guise of “gender-affirming care” is a “huge evil” and “diabolical.”
Wednesday was not the first time Hinkle opposed the state’s efforts to protect Floridians who are confused about their gender. Earlier this month, he blocked a new Florida law that prohibits doctors from butchering teenagers. Hinkle suggested that prohibiting doctors from removing healthy body parts of confused teens is “not good medicine.”
