Florida’s Child Gender Transition Ban Now in Effect

In Florida, minors are currently prohibited from transitioning gender. The Florida Board of Medicine’s new policy prohibits minors from receiving gender transition treatments as of Thursday. Furthermore, Republican state legislators in Florida are planning to tighten the restrictions even further.

Individuals under the age of 18 in Florida are not permitted to receive puberty blockers, hormone therapies, or surgeries to address gender dysphoria, according to the law.

Minors who were already receiving gender-affirming treatment prior to Thursday can continue to do so, but the new rule prohibits them from undergoing sex reassignment surgeries from now on.

The nonprofit legal organization Southern Legal Counsel has announced its intention to file a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s prohibition. Furthermore, the group is fighting the Medicaid restriction on transgender healthcare coverage in court on May 9th.

Meanwhile, Republican legislators in Florida are pushing a bill that would make providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony and prohibit state funds from being used to cover the same care for adults. The House companion bill would make transgender healthcare a focal point in state court custody battles.

HB1421, the companion bill, is now in the Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee. Similar to Florida, it would make certain gender-related clinical interventions, such as sex reassignment surgeries, puberty blocking, hormone, and hormone antagonistic therapies, illegal for minors. The bill also prohibits the use of public funds for gender clinical interventions and changing the sex recorded on a birth certificate, unless there is a scrivener’s error or an unresolvable ambiguity of external biological sex characteristics at the time of birth.

HB 1421 “prohibits persons and entities from expending funds for reimbursement for specified clinical interventions; prohibits changing a person’s biological sex on a birth certificate; prohibits gender clinical interventions for minors; authorizes certain individuals to refuse to participate in gender clinical interventions; and prohibits health insurance policies and health maintenance contracts from covering gender clinical interventions.”

There are also exceptions to these prohibitions for certain medically verifiable genetic sexual development disorders. Adults who receive gender clinical interventions from physicians must obtain and maintain professional liability insurance.

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