ORLANDO, FLORIDA — The Florida Board of Medicine will meet on Friday to discuss potential rule changes that would protect minors from harmful procedures designed to “transition” boys and girls into the opposite gender. The meeting is scheduled from 8 am to 1 pm at the Hyatt Regency at Orlando International Airport. It will feature seven subject matter experts and comments from the public.
In July, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) filed a petition requesting the Board of Medicine to begin the rule-making process for the “gender-affirming care” given to teens confused about their identity. Examples of these “treatments” include hormone or puberty blocking drugs and surgical procedures like those that remove the uterus, penis or breasts. Weeks later, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) created a new rule that restricted Medicaid from covering these treatments.
“Children do not possess the cognitive or emotional maturity to comprehend the consequences of these invasive and irreversible procedures,” the petition said.
BIDEN OPPOSES STATE PROTECTIONS
The Board of Medicine meeting will cap off what has been an eventful news week over the war over the legality of transitioning teens. On Sunday, NowThis News published an interview with President Joe Biden in which he was asked if states should be allowed to ban “gender-affirming healthcare” such as the aforementioned drugs and surgical procedures.
“I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to do that. As a moral question and as a legal question, I just think it’s wrong,” Biden said.
Also on Sunday, The Telegraph reported that The National Health Services (NHS) of England, called gender dysphoria a “transient phase” and banned the use of puberty blockers for most patients under 18.
DETRANSITIONERS SPEAKING OUT
Online, stories abound of “detransitioners” – men and women attempting to stop or reverse the effects of surgical or pharmaceutical transitioning. A Reddit community for detransitioners which was started in 2017 currently has just under 41,000 members.
Chloe Cole, an outspoken 18-year-old detransitioner, says she hated her body after being sexually assaulted by a male student at school. She became uncomfortable with her breasts and sought to remove them in order to “protect my body from further molestation.”
“I realized the future of motherhood had been stolen from me by medical professionals my family entrusted me to,” Cole said at a September press conference for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s H.R. 8731 bill that would criminalize genital mutilation and chemical castration of children.
“The medical professionals who got me into this mess now have no idea what to do with me and they refuse to help me,” Cole added. “It almost killed me, as it has killed many who regret transition.”
Cole shared her story with the Florida DOH and applauded Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo for his efforts to protect children from the harm caused by unnecessary drugs or surgical procedures.
“Most politicians on the left and right have done nothing but get into Twitter fights on this issue,” she stated in her closing remarks at Greene’s press conference. “No child deserves to suffer under the knife of a gender-affirming surgeon.”
ADVOCATES FOR TRANSITIONING MINORS
The Human Rights Campaign published a statement in August condemning the possible rule changes, which they stated “would – contrary to all medical best practices – deny gender-affirming care to Florida's transgender youth.”
Some of those who advocate for giving the procedures to interested minors are planning to protest at the meeting in Orlando.
