TALLAHASEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) – A Florida state representative says that he will introduce a bill during the next legislative session that would make it a felony offense to provide minors with gender “reassignment” surgery or drugs.
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” said Republican Rep. Randy Fine on Facebook. “Next session, I will help shepherd legislation to make it illegal to provide drugs or surgery to a minor for the purpose of alleged ‘gender assignment.’ The legislation will make it felony child abuse punishable by prison and loss of medical license. The legislation would not affect mental counseling.”
“If an adult wants to self-mutilate their body in pursuit of the fiction that they can defy both G-d [sic] and science, more power to them – so long as they don’t expect me to pay for it,” continued Fine. “But no child should be put in the position of making fundamentally life-altering decisions before they are of the age of majority … I can call myself a porcupine, but that doesn’t make it so. It is time for us to dispense with this fantasy – one that is turning our women’s sports into a joke and our schools into a cesspool.”
Fine, speaking to the Orlando Sentinel, said that the legislation is a response to the reaction to the Parental Rights in Education bill, which protects parents and students from teachers and counselors identifying as homosexual from grooming children from pre-K to 3rd grade. According to Fine, critics of his legislation would be part of a “radical grooming minority that tried to sexualize our children.”
When asked if his proposed legislation would contravene parental rights in the health care of children, Fine said that “parents don’t have the right to abuse their children.” “So if you agree with my premise … that cutting off the penis of a 12-year-old is child abuse, then a parent shouldn’t have the right to do that,” he continued.
Fine’s legislation would not be the first government intervention to address the issue of child abuse and transgenderism. In January, Republican Florida Rep. Andrew Sabatini introduced the Vulnerable Child Protection Act in the Florida legislature, which sought to outlaw sterilization surgeries in minors. The law also sought to ban the distribution of transgender hormone drugs to children with gender disorders. The bill died in committee last month.
In February, Texas governor Greg Abbott directed state agencies to investigate parents who subjected their children to gender “reassignment” surgery and drugs for child abuse after Attorney General Ken Paxton found that such practices violated Texas law. A Texas court blocked Abbott’s decision in response to a legal challenge filed by parents.
Arizona governor Doug Ducey signed bills last month that ban “sex change” surgeries for minors, gender-confused men in women’s and girls’ sports, and almost all abortions up to 15 weeks.
Fine faces reelection this November. The next legislative session for the Florida state legislature is in 2023.