Judge sides with families battling Florida’s ban on gender care for minors
A federal judge in Florida ruled on Tuesday that three transgender children could be prescribed puberty blockers, despite a new state law banning sex reassignment care for minors and adding new hurdles for adults seeking similar care.
While the ruling only applied to the three families who requested it, the judge wrote that the families would likely succeed in overturning the law, a statement their lawyers say could have far-reaching consequences.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction following an emergency petition from three Florida families. She and others had sued the state in March over a clerical ban on gender transition care for minors, then expanded their lawsuit to pass the new law after Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, passed it May 17. signed.
Prosecutors had urged Judge Robert L. Hinkle of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee to specifically block a portion of the law that prohibits doctors and nurses from prescribing or administering menopausal medications to children, and another portion that prohibits medical exposes healthcare providers to criminal liability and professional discipline for it.
“Gender identity is real,” Judge Hinkle wrote in his strongly worded ruling, adding that “proper treatment” includes mental health therapy that may be followed by hormone treatments and puberty blockers. “Florida has passed a statute and rules that prohibit these treatments, even if they are medically justified.”
He also wrote that the families who filed the lawsuit “are likely to prevail over their claim that the ban is unconstitutional.”
The order issued by Judge Hinkle does not apply to other aspects of the far-reaching legislation, which also bans gender transition surgery for minors, changes custody statutes to equate transitional care with child abuse, and prohibits the use of state funds to pay for transitional care.
Lawyers for the families on Tuesday interpreted the ruling as potentially applicable to other underage transgender people across the state.
“The court addressed the specific question but also issued a very strong ruling that says it is unlikely that the banned constitutional scrutiny will survive,” said Jennifer Levi, an attorney for the plaintiffs and the senior director of transgender rights at GLBTQ Legal. Lawyers & Defenders.
She noted that Judge Hinkle’s 44-page ruling drew conclusions far beyond the scope of the three families in the case. “The power of the ruling is to make it clear that the law is unconstitutional,” she said.
The Florida Department of Health declined to comment on the ruling, citing the ongoing litigation.
The legislation codifies policies passed last year by the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine — whose members are appointed by the governor — that would ban hormone treatments for people under 18 unless they were already receiving such care. Judge Hinkle’s order also temporarily blocked those lines because they pertain to the three plaintiffs.
The law also includes penalties for doctors who violate it, including prison terms of up to five years. It goes beyond similar legislation in other states by adding new restrictions for adults receiving menopause care, including requirements that consent forms be signed and hormone treatment prescriptions obtained in person rather than through a telemedicine appointment.
Under the new law, only doctors can prescribe menopause medication; practice nurses and physician assistants, who already treat many patients, can no longer do so. Those provisions were not blocked by the judge’s order and remain in effect.
More than a dozen states have passed bans or other restrictions on transition-related care for children and teens in the past year. Proponents say the ban protects children from medical treatments they consider harmful and unproven. But that view defies much of the medical establishment, which sees the care as medically necessary and beneficial for some children with gender dysphoria.
Opponents of the law in Florida say it stands out because it is “particularly mean,” as the Human Rights Campaign described it.
Lawyers for the families argued that the law threatened to cause irreparable harm, as parents would be “deprived of their fundamental right to make medical decisions for their children” and the children themselves would suffer “a cascade of mental and physical injuries” if they would not be admitted. concern.
After the bill passed, Planned Parenthood warned patients it would suspend gender reassignment care at its Florida clinics until mid-June so it could develop new consent forms for adults receiving the care and adjust its practices to comply with the new law . Other clinics that relied on nurse practitioners to provide care have stopped prescribing them indefinitely.
Before signing the law, Mr. DeSantis, who has since announced a presidential bid, puberty blockers and other forms of gender transition care for children. “That’s wrong, and we’re glad we ended that in the state of Florida,” he said.
“It is wrong to sexualize these children,” he added. “It’s wrong to have a gender ideology and tell kids they may have been born in the wrong body.”
The legislation was part of an avalanche of measures targeting LGBTQ people that Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed at its annual session.
Lawmakers have introduced bills requiring public school employees to call students with the pronouns that match the gender on their birth certificates, regardless of the child’s preference; making it a criminal offense to use toilets in public buildings that do not match the sex of the person at birth; and punishing companies that allow minors to “adult live performances”, including drag shows.
Now that a preliminary injunction has been issued, the plaintiffs’ legal challenge against the law will continue.
It remains unclear how a ban on gender transition care for minors will ultimately fare in the courts. One indication would be imminent: A judge is expected to rule soon on a lawsuit to overturn legislation passed in Arkansas in 2021 that was the first to ban medical treatments for children and teens seeking gender reassignment .