TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Board of Medicine is scheduled to review a Florida Department of Health proposal on Friday that would essentially ban transition-related care for transgender youth.
The Department of Health is proposing physicians in the state be barred from providing treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty-blocking medication to transgender youths.
The agency points to various studies, arguing the risks of these treatments outweigh the benefits. They also call the evidence in support of these treatments "weak."
Florida's Surgeon General supports the move. In a letter sent to the Florida Board of Medicine, he calls for the Board to establish guidance and a standard of care for “certain pharmaceutical, non-pharmaceutical, and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria.”
“The current standards set by numerous professional organizations appear to follow a preferred political ideology instead of the highest level of generally accepted medical science. Florida must do more to protect children from politics-based medicine,” Ladapo's letter reads.
However, Florida's LGBTQ Consumer Advocate and member of the trans community, Nathan Bruemmer, doesn't believe the effort is truly about protecting the health of the community.
"If you look at what's been submitted, you have several state agencies submitting what each other has drafted. And it's a bit of a circular evidentiary trail," Bruemmer said. "They found a handful of bad studies, some of which have been refuted, documented, and refuted ad-nauseam by researchers."
Bruemmer views this move by the DeSantis administration as part of a broader push by Republicans to target transgender people.
"It's about removing rights and liberties, and it's really about erasing a portion of our population right now, LGBTQ Floridians, but specifically now transgender Floridians, both adolescents, and adults."
He worries over what message this sends to the transgender community.
"We know the negative implications on mental health," Bruemmer said. "We know with the rates of depression and anxiety and suicidality."
This move to impose bans on transgender treatments comes at the same time Florida's Agency for Healthcare Administration has proposed blocking Medicaid from paying for them. That has yet to be finalized.
In preparation for the meeting, the board of medicine posted 1,113 pages of documents on its public website related to gender-dysphoria treatment, which includes the studies referenced above.