US appeals court allows Florida ban on gender-affirming care for minors News
Lucas Werkmeister, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US appeals court allows Florida ban on gender-affirming care for minors

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday stayed a lower court decision to block Florida laws that ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors and restrict such healthcare for transgender adults.

The decision allows for Florida to enforce SB 254 (Treatments for Sex Reassignment), which bans hormone replacement therapy for minors and limits transgender healthcare for adults, while pending an appeal of a June federal court ruling in June that found the ban unconstitutional. The three-panel judges ruled 2-1 in favor of the defendants-appellants, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and the Florida Board of Medicine (BOM).

Judges Britt Grant and Robert Luck, both appointed by former president Donald Trump, were in the majority. Judge Charles Wilson dissented. He contended that the matter is “a medical issue, where patients are best left to make decisions alongside health professionals, with access to complete, unbiased information, as needed” and that the plaintiffs would “suffer if the stay were granted.” If the law is violated, children undergoing hormone replacement therapies or blockers may be taken into the state’s custody. Doctors can face imprisonment, fines and/or loss of license.

The federal appellate court’s order undoes Judge Robert Hinkle’s June 11 ruling that stopped Florida from enforcing the law. Last month, while the case went through appeals, Hinkle confirmed his June ruling. He stated that the 2023 ban on puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for minors and limitations for transgender adults directly attacked transgender people and violated the rights of transgender people and transgender children’s parents.

In March 2023, Florida families filed a lawsuit against the ban, arguing that it impacted needed medical care for transgender youth and that the law removed parents’ right to make informed decisions. Last month GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) extended the lawsuit to include four transgender adults to deal with SB S54’s restriction on adult transgender healthcare. Various organizations representing the plaintiffs expressed their disappointment in appeals court’s decision, saying that “restrictions were based on disapproval of transgender people and serve no purpose other than to harm transgender Floridians”.

Currently, 39.4 percent of youth live in states that ban transgender healthcare. There are 642 bills in 2024 that block transgender healthcare, education and legal recognition. Seventy-nine are being considered at a federal level and 45 that have been passed.

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