Florida lawmaker set to introduce bill banning transgender medical treatments on minors

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida lawmakers are soon expected to file legislation banning medical care for transgender minors.

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It comes after the Florida Board of Medicine advanced a rule change prohibiting the use of medications and surgeries to treat transgender youth.

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On Tuesday, the House Health and Human Services Committee heard from the Chair of the Florida Board of Medicine, an Oxford Sociologist, an endocrinologist, a psychiatrist, a member of Gays Against Groomers and Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman who formerly identified as trans.

All of the panelists took the position transgender medical interventions for minors should be banned.

Cole testified to her experience having undergone those interventions as a teen and the long term impacts they’ve had on her life.

“I’ll never have breasts. I’ll never be able to breastfeed my children. I might not ever be able to carry a child. And sometimes I have episodes where still see a boy in the mirror and it makes me panic,” Cole said.

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Committee Chair State Representative Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay) said he’ll soon be filing legislation aimed at putting an end to what he describes as “human butchering”.

“When a young girl, a 13-year-old, is told that this is the right thing to do and then they change their mind their lives are destroyed,” said Fine.

But Nikole Parker, Director of Transgender Equality at Equality Florida, argues lawmakers are attempting to craft policy for all trans youth based off a single person’s experience.

“What was missing off of that panel was an individual who could have sat there and said gender affirming care saved my life and here’s how my quality of life has increased because I was able to transition and access this care, but obviously it was very clear the tone they wanted to have for this committee,” Parker said.

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Panelists testified to the potential medical complications that can arise from use of puberty blockers, hormones and gender reassignment surgeries on trans-adolescents, though they admitted there are no medical procedures without risks.

However, Fine argued minors cannot consent.

“We should not be having them make these life altering decisions that will destroy their lives until their old enough to make these decisions on their own,” Fine said.

Parker, who is trans herself, counters the government shouldn’t be interfering in intimate medical decisions, decisions she contends can be lifesaving.

“These decisions aren’t made solely by the youth. The parent has to sign off on this. There are consents. There are letters needed from psychiatrists, from medical doctors. All of these things. So, once again that’s the rhetoric that you hear that’s making it seem like it’s easy to go get this done and it truly is not,” Parker said.

Even without legislation, the Florida Board of Medicine has already pushed forward a rule banning medical treatment for transgender youth set to take effect in mid-March.

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It will make Florida the 7th state to ban the interventions.