JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Wednesday marked eight years since the mass shooting at Pulse Night Club, which claimed the lives of 49 in Orlando.
As the LGBTQ+ community remembered those lost, they also celebrated a major court victory after a federal judge ruled several restrictions the state imposed on transgender healthcare were unconstitutional.
After Florida lawmakers passed a state law restricting access to transgender medical care for children and adults in 2023, many transgender Floridians like Jacksonville resident Erika D-Amore could no longer receive care from their medical providers.
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“Some sought treatment from out of state, which was highly costly. And all of this, you know to be fair, because our Governor and the Republican Party it seems wanted to make a distraction from what they were doing and make a boogieman out of people that were just trying to live their lives,” D-Amore said.
The law completely blocked medications like puberty blockers and hormones for minors.
For adults, restrictions limited what kind of medical professionals could provide treatments and how patients could go about receiving care.
Dr. Mohammed Reza stepped in to fill in the gaps and began providing treatments to D-Amore and roughly 300 transgender adults in the Northeast Florida region after the law took effect.
“You know, these are people that have transitioned, some have had surgeries where they’re physiologically dependent on these medications for the rest of their life. And to take that away from so many people is just so unjust,” Dr. Reza said.
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A ruling from a federal judge issued Tuesday has now deemed those restrictions unconstitutional and restored full access once again.
“It is wrong to perform a sex change on a 16-year-old,” Governor Ron DeSantis said during a press conference Wednesday.
DeSantis vowed to fight the ruling and file an appeal.
“This has already been decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. They upheld Alabama’s law, which was almost identical,” DeSantis said.
Equality Florida’s Carlos Guillermo Smith said he believes an appeal is unlikely to succeed.
He noted the judge found lawmakers made the discriminatory intent of the law clear during public hearings.
In one case, a lawmaker even referred to transgender individuals as “demons”.
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“This permanent injunction should give health care providers all of the clearance that they need to resume that care once again to transgender Floridians who need it,” Smith said.
For those directly impacted by the law like D-Amore, the ruling marks a return to normalcy, even if only temporarily.
“When I was able to connect friends of mine that lost their care with Dr. Reza, I have never had people reach out to me as if I saved their life,” D-Amore said. “The gravity of that. Seeing that. You can’t forget that. You know, you see how important this care is to so many people.”
One of the few parts of the law that was not overturned is the ban on transgender surgeries for minors, though the lawsuit did not specifically challenge that provision.
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