FDOH asks Florida Board of Medicine to prohibit sex reassignment surgery and puberty blockers for treatment of gender dysphoria in minors
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) has filed a Petition to Initiate Rulemaking that will establish standards of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria in the state of Florida if the Board of Medicine adopts the rule. The rule is on the agenda of the Board of Medicine’s August 5 meeting in Ft. Lauderdale.
The Petition asks the Board of Medicine, which establishes standards of care, to establish a rule that sex reassignment surgery should be prohibited under the age of 18; that puberty blocking, hormone, and hormone antagonist therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria should be prohibited under the age of 18; and that if the above treatments are used to treat gender dysphoria in adults, informed consent must be in writing through forms approved by the Board at least 24 hours before treatment is provided. FDOH further proposes that the Board issue guidance allowing physicians to provide appropriate care for patients who are already undergoing hormone therapy or who enter the state after beginning hormone treatments.
Among the arguments in the Petition are statements that the available medical literature provides insufficient evident for these interventions; that puberty blockers are not approved by the FDA for treatment of gender dysphoria, are not efficacious for treatment of gender dysphoria, and have permanent side effects; that hormonal treatments in adolescents can achieve their intended physical effects, but quality evidence regarding their psychological and cognitive impacts are lacking, and that they can cause irreversible physical changes, including infertility and sterility; and that surgical interventions are not reversible and that the long-term mental health effects of the procedures are largely unknown.
If the rule were adopted, it would presumably limit the treatments available at programs like UF Health’s Youth Gender Program, which is “for transgender and gender-nonconforming, or TGNC, youth and their families.” Along with services that include consultation, psychotherapy, and assessment of medical readiness for cross-sex hormone therapy, the program includes resources that include this hand-out on “tucking” that is intended for “male-bodied” people but clearly shows a picture of a female body as an illustration of the expected result of the process.
The agenda backup material (proposed rule starts on page 870) includes a June 2 letter from FDOH to the Board of Medicine, explaining the Department’s stance that the evidence for use of surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria in children and adolescents is “extraordinarily weak”; the April 20 guidance from FDOH that recommends against the use of these therapies in minors; peer-reviewed papers on gender dysphoria in childhood, on puberty, and on the safety and efficacy of various treatments; literature reviews and guidelines from other countries; Florida Medicaid’s literature review of treatment of gender dysphoria; papers that discuss the ethics of informed consent in the use of these treatments; and a letter from a group of physicians, psychologists, and a law professor, opposing FDOH’s request to the Board of Medicine, stating that “standard medical treatments for gender dysphoria meet accepted professional medical standards and are not experimental or investigational,” along with their critical review of the Florida Medicaid Report.
This is sickening that parents are doing this to their children.
What’s also sickening is how the
photographer is exploiting “Bink” by making him pose queer dressed up like a pack of those fruity lifesavers with a tutu on and a rainbow painted on his/her face with the lipstick & mascara on and the swing between
his/her crotch…” a picture paints a thousand words”.
I think this is good legislation. I think that children should be allowed to have THEIR childhood and
waiting after puberty & to an age where you are not considered a juvenile (18) is a natural
course…”it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”…
What’s sickening is the FDOH depriving adolescents from gender-affirming care (which, for the VAST majority of adolescents, doesn’t include surgery). The type of care this legislation would prevent has been shown to help patients with gender dysphoria (something a healthcare professional has to diagnose) overcome depression and anxiety.
Plus, for the rare case where surgery is recommended by both a mental health professional and doctor, there is “extremely low prevalence of regret” (less than 1%).
Regardless with how any of us feel though, no parent should name their child Bink.
https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/political-minds/202201/the-evidence-trans-youth-gender-affirming-medical-care
https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fulltext/2021/03000/regret_after_gender_affirmation_surgery__a.22.aspx
The problem is that they aren’t “healthcare professionals”; they are kooks. If you know any psychologists, it’s hard to argue with me. It’s like looking to a drag queen to educate a child (almost). None of these problems of kids obsessing over what gender they should ‘pick’ would exist if schools actually focused on academics instead of catering to teachers who like to try to ‘rap’ with the kids about all kinds of stuff that should never be brought up in an academic setting. Why didn’t Miss Beedle ask the kids on Little House on the Prairie to draw pictures representing their queerness and transwonderfulness?
Miss Beadle probably didn’t discuss it because she was living in a time when things like homosexuality was literally a crime and Black people were legally second-class citizens. Thank god for social progress!
The idea that teachers are trying to indoctrinate their students with a “LGBT Agenda” is ridiculous, despite the random (but admittedly cringeworthy and disagreeable) individuals on Libs of TikTok. I honestly feel like all of this is just a distraction for us to quibble over as our political/economic elites get richer and more powerful. Interesting how the evil “woke” Disney is still getting millions in tax returns.
If we want all our children to have access to happy, healthy lives, then legislation like this will actively prevent it for our most vulnerable children, as studies have shown.
Should we go back to frontal lobotomies on a routine basis? How about leeches for some good old-fashioned bloodletting? ECT for hysterical women? Sorry, but tampering with kids’ bodies because they have some sort of culturally-induced iatrogenic mental disorder is not acceptable. Buy Bobby a doll (or a skirt) if he wants one, but that doesn’t mean you have to start talking about cutting his penis off or injecting him with chemicals. I had a doll for a brief time as a little boy, by the way. My parents thought it was a little unusual, but it didn’t suddenly become the most important defining thing in my life. Kids depend on (sane) adults to do the right thing – since they are kids, obviously.
Although I appreciate you expressing your opinion, I think you are mistaken. If you look closely at so-called “gender affirming care”, most of it is truly child abuse aimed at a segment of our population least capable of making these decisions with life-long consequences. At least make them wait until they are mature enough to make rational informed decisions about the rest of their lives.
Next on city commission agenda will be to make arrangements and pay to fly the parents and kids to another state for the surgery (something most regret by adulthood) on our dime! Stop the city madness!!
This is disgusting, kids can’t pick dinner much less a different gender. Since when are we ignoring basic biology.
Follow the science…Biology? They don’t even know what a woman is anymore. Liberalism is a mental disorder. I wonder if Binks’ parents
got him dancing in a caberat (sp?)
for all the confused liberals out there. Stop the indoctrination & exploitation of children in our public schools.
Bink at 10. Keep open the psych ward for him at 15.
UF is going along with this horse manure? They should be ashamed. The FDOH statements and recommendations are correct.