On Friday, two medical boards in the state of Florida decided via joint committee to approve new statewide rules banning puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other forms of so-called “gender transitioning” procedures for underaged children.
As reported by Fox News, both the Florida Board of Medicine (FBM) and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine (FBOM) approved the new ban on minors receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and from undergoing surgeries to alter their bodies. The boards were first tasked with coming up with solutions to these problems by Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo back in June, who referred to such procedures as “complex and irreversible.”
In August, both boards agreed to a 120-day period to plan specific solutions with regards to these treatments for children who believe they are “transgender.” The boards did come to a disagreement with regards to children who have already begun the process of taking puberty-blockers and forms of hormones to make them feel like the opposite gender; the FBOM determined that these treatments should ultimately be allowed to continue if they had previously been approved by an Institutional Review Board, while the FBM voted against the proposal.
In response to the committees’ joint decision, Surgeon General Ladapo released a statement praising the new rules, declaring that “today, the Boards of Medicine & Osteopathic Medicine voted 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,” he added, referring to backlash from far-left activists. “Children deserve to learn how to navigate this world without harmful pressure. Florida will continue to fight for kids to be kids.”
Under Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), Florida has begun implementing numerous rules to crack down on the promotion of so-called “gender affirmation” processes such as surgery and puberty-blockers. Earlier this year, the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration banned healthcare providers from asking the state’s Medicaid program to fund such treatments.
Transgenderism is a mental disorder in which someone believes that they are actually the opposite gender of the one they were born with. Although formally known as “gender dysphoria,” the far-left has sought to mainstream this illness by claiming that transgenderism is real, and that anyone can change their gender at any time. In response to efforts to indoctrinate young children with these ideas, often without their parents’ knowledge, grassroots protest movements have targeted schools that teach such misinformation, and several Republican-led states have passed laws cracking down on the availability of such procedures, as well as the teaching of such pseudo-biology.