Florida has become the first American state to limit care for trans youth through medical board action, with the approval last week of a rule banning gender-affirming medications and surgery for those with gender dysphoria who are not already being treated.
MedPage Today reports that the state’s Board of Medicine voted to adopt a proposed standard of care for new patients under 18 with gender dysphoria, which will prohibit both gender-affirming surgeries and medications, including puberty blockers and hormone therapies. The rule will not apply to transgender and gender-diverse youth already receiving treatment.
Its Board of Osteopathic Medicine also voted to restrict use of gender-affirming care for minors, but it included an exception for children enrolled in clinical trials.
The rule will now go through a weeks-long approval process that will include further public comment. Once the rules are adopted, physicians who do not adhere to them risk losing their medical licences.
The move to ban a procedure through a state’s medical board is an unprecedented one, with the state legislature having twice declined taking up a Bill to restrict gender-affirming care.
Dr David Diamond, a radiation oncologist who is the chair of the board, said there was a “pressing need for additional, high-quality research” on gender-affirming care in children.
The Endocrine Society called the new standard of care “anti-science” and “blatantly discriminatory”, adding that it “contradicts medical evidence followed by the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Paediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Paediatric Endocrine Society and other mainstream medical organisations”.
“Medical evidence, not politics, should inform treatment decisions,” the society said in a statement. “The move by the Florida Board of Health to ban gender-affirming care based on a political agenda rather than on science sets a dangerous precedent for all health care decisions.”
During the 2022 legislative session, at least 20 states have proposed Bills that restrict healthcare for transgender youth, according to non-profit organisation Freedom for All Americans. Florida is one of several states to have restricted gender-affirming care for minors. Arkansas and Alabama passed laws banning such care for minors, and Texas said it would investigate parents of transgender children seeking such care. However, Florida is the first to do so via medical board action.
In their guidance, the boards stated that they did not recommend social transition, puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery for children, and recommended support from family and peers, as well as counselling from a licensed mental health professional.
In June, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration released a report supporting the guidelines, stating that treatment for gender dysphoria, like hormones, puberty blockers, and surgery, is “not consistent with widely accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long term affects (sic)”.
AHCA_GAPMS_June_2022_ReportMedPage Today article – Florida Medical Boards Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Kids (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
NHS drafts new guidelines for treating transgender youth
US judge blocks part of controversial law, green-lights meds for transgender youth
US moves to limit transgender treatments for young Americans
Texas sued to block investigations into parents over transgender surgery