Florida Medical Boards Vote to Ban Sex Change Surgeries, Hormone Therapies for Minors

Supporters of activist Chris Elston demonstrate against gender affirmation treatments and surgeries on minors, outside of Boston Childrens Hospital in Boston, Mass., on Sept. 18, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Florida’s boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine on Friday voted to prohibit certain therapies and medical procedures typically used as so-called treatments of gender dysphoria.

The two boards met in Orlando for a joint public meeting where each voted on the same rules related to minors, banning sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics.

The rules also ban puberty blockers, as well as hormone and hormone antagonist therapies. Opponents of such treatments characterize them as life-altering and say they can lead to sterilization.

Nonsurgical treatments for gender dysphoria in minors may continue under the auspices of investigator-initiated clinical trials approved by the Institutional Review Board and conducted at certain Florida medical schools.

Minors who are already being treated with puberty blockers or hormone and hormone antagonist therapies prior to the rule taking effect are allowed to continue.

The rules will take effect after a weekslong period of public input.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the move would help to “protect our children from irreversible surgeries [and] highly experimental treatments.

“I appreciate their integrity for ruling in the best interest of [Florida] children despite facing tremendous pressure to permit these risky [and] unproven treatments,” Ladapo in a statement.

“Children deserve to learn how to navigate this world without harmful pressure. Florida will continue to fight for kids to be kids.”

The medical boards published over 4,000 pages (pdf) of testimony by medical professionals and members of the public who support the ban.

‘Ghoulish Gender Experiments’

The decision has been hailed as a win for the protection of children in the state by Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation and former director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Children should never have their sex treated as a disease that needs ‘curing’ through permanently sterilizing surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers," Severino said in a statement. “We applaud the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine for protecting children from ghoulish gender experiments that leave kids scarred and infertile.”

Severino said the now-banned treatments don’t cure the depression often associated with minors suffering gender dysphoria “but instead make it worse.”

He said that around 90 percent of children with gender confusion grow out of it “when puberty and nature are allowed to simply take their course.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been a vocal opponent of minors being treated for gender dysphoria with the typical procedures and therapies. In the past, he has characterized them as dangerous and has said doctors should be sued for performing them.

“They don’t tell you what that is—they are actually giving very young girls double mastectomies, they want to castrate these young boys,” DeSantis said in August.

“Both from the health and children wellbeing perspective, you don’t disfigure 10-, 12-, 13-year-old kids based on gender dysphoria, 80 percent of it resolves anyways by the time they get older. So why would you be doing this?”

The current treatments for gender dysphoria are supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and the American Medical Association.

Many doctors and medical experts downplay what opponents call the harm of so-called “gender-affirming care” for children.

At the public meeting of the two medical boards on Friday, the vast majority of attendees who spoke were against the treatments. Some spoke about their regrets about undergoing the treatments.