The Florida Board of Medicine has voted to ban puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries such as double mastectomies and castrations – what LGBTQ activists call “gender-affirming care” – for children under the age of 18 in the state.
The move to prohibit the life-altering hormones and surgeries for the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and teens makes the Florida medical board the first in the nation to pursue such a rule, NBC News reported Saturday.
The medical board meeting was held at Orlando International Airport, where LGBTQ activists acted out a “die-in” in the lobby to protest the vote.
In early June, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo requested the state’s medical board “establish a standard of care for these complex and irreversible procedures,” citing the Florida Department of Health’s guidance, released in April, that challenged a fact sheet published by the Biden Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In response to the question, “What is gender-affirming care?” the Biden HHS stated:
Gender-affirming care is a supportive form of healthcare. It consists of an array of services that may include medical, surgical, mental health, and non-medical services for transgender and nonbinary people.
For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender- affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system.
The Florida health department’s guidance, however, countered:
Systematic reviews on hormonal treatment for young people show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias. A paper published in the International Review of Psychiatry states that 80% of those seeking clinical care will lose their desire to identify with the non-birth sex. One review concludes that “hormonal treatments for transgender adolescents can achieve their intended physical effects, but evidence regarding their psychosocial and cognitive impact is generally lacking.”
Due to a lack of “conclusive evidence,” the state’s health department issued these guidelines:
- Social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.
- Anyone under 18 should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
- Gender reassignment surgery should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.
- Based on the currently available evidence, “encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.”
- Children and adolescents should be provided social support by peers and family and seek counseling from a licensed provider.
The state health department made clear its guidelines “do not apply” to children or teens born with a disorder of sex development.
While now radicalized establishment health organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association, are making claims policies protecting minors from irreversible damage due to transgender treatments discriminate against children and adolescents who claim a gender identity that is incompatible with their biological sex, California endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw told Lumen-News in April:
It is unethical to put kids on a pathway to sterilization as early as age 8 or 9, before they know anything about sex or human development. Blocking normal puberty can be permanently harmful to the bone, brain, and social development of kids.
Transgender surgeries, Laidlaw asserted, “cause irreversible damage, and the healthy organs that are removed – such as breasts, ovaries, and testicles – can never be replaced.”
“Furthermore, there are many detransitioners who deeply regret being medicalized by this experimental treatment, and their voices need to be heard,” he added.
Laidlaw testified at the Florida hearing that research has found 50 to 90 percent of children whose gender identity isn’t consistent with their assigned sex at birth grow out of the condition by adulthood.
“The basic problem with this treatment as I see it is: ‘What happens when you force a square peg into a round hole?’” he asked, according to NBC News. “You end up injuring or destroying the peg in the process.”
As the Daily Mail reported Friday following the Florida Board of Medicine’s vote to ban transgender procedures for minors, board members indicated the decision was made based on the irreversibility of the treatments and the rise in “detransitioners,” individuals who regret the life-altering drugs and surgeries to change their bodies to conform to their gender identity.
A group of detransitioners testified at the medical board’s hearing. Video is available at the Daily Mail.
A Project Veritas undercover investigation released two weeks ago revealed British Columbia Children’s Hospital pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Metzger, who is associated with World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Global Education Institute (GEI), said during a video conference he is concerned minor children and adolescents do not have the mental capacity to engage in the informed consent process because they do not comprehend the results of these life-altering procedures.
“We try to talk about it [consequences of transgender treatments] but most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of a brain space to really, really, really talk about [the subject] in a serious way,” he admitted. “That’s always bothered me. But, you know, we still want the kids to be happy, happier in the moment, right?”
– – –
Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Doctor and Child” by Pavel Danilyuk.
