TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Two medical boards in Florida recently voted to further extend the prohibition on minors taking transgender drugs and getting surgeries as part of the state’s larger efforts to stop the chemical and genital mutilation of children.
The February 10 joint meeting vote by the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine and the Florida Board of Medicine closes a loophole that allowed universities to give kids “puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery to treat gender dysphoria,” as part of clinical trials, Florida’s Voice reported.
The full meeting can be viewed here. Numerous gender-confused individuals testified to the need to ensure that young kids can be injected with hormones or have reproductive organs chopped off or otherwise permanently sterilized.
In October, the Board of Medicine voted to ban transgender drugs and surgeries for minors but allowed for the university experimentation exception.
Governor Ron DeSantis recently said that he plans to continue to fight the chemical and genital mutilation of children.
At a January 31 news conference, the Republican governor criticized medical professionals for “giving teenagers, kids puberty blockers. They’re doing sex change operations. And so we actually have, you know, young adults who went through this when they were minors, and they’re saying this is a huge mistake. And, in fact, it’s not evidence based.”
Gender-confused individuals, including one who said she knew she was transgender in 5th grade, spoke out against Florida’s prohibition on drugs and surgeries for gender-dysphoric kids. pic.twitter.com/dLXrUEho4h
— Matt Lamb (@MattLamb22) February 14, 2023
The governor reiterated that “if you’re performing those procedures on these minors, you’re gonna lose your medical license here in Florida.”
He also is working with legislators to make the prohibitions statutory and permanent in state law.
In April, the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, released guidance warning against transgender drugs and surgeries for minors.
The Florida Department of Health (DOH) Guidance stated:
Based on the currently available evidence, ‘encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.
The guidance document pointed to a “a lack of conclusive evidence” for “gender transitioning” and “the potential for long-term, irreversible effects,” and noted that analysis of the benefits of hormonal interventions “show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias.”
The warnings comport with the scientific expertise of credentialed medical experts who have concluded that the “transitioning” of kids amounts to “child abuse” and is creating a “public health issue.” LifeSiteNews compiled a sampling of statements and studies from medical experts who studied the issue of gender dysphoria and reached the conclusion that drugs and surgeries are not the answer.
LifeSiteNews has compiled testimonies from formerly gender-confused people along with insights from credential medical experts on the harms of transgenderism. This is a resource for confronting LGBT activists and helping gender-confused individuals realize the harms of chemical and surgical mutilations. Read more here.