Dania Beach, Fla. – The Florida Board of Medicine met Friday to discuss several agenda items, but the most debated is gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
In its full meeting held at the Fort Lauderdale Airport Marriott, a petition by the Florida State Surgeon General is being considered to create a rule preventing medical professionals from providing gender-affirming medical care.
Crowds pressing to protect gender-affirming health care gathered outside the hotel, many with signs on hand. Some of them read: “Give trans children a happy future” and “Florida Board of Medicine or Board of Suicide?”.
Inside, people from both sides of the debate packed a conference room.
“It’s as basic as social transition,” said John Harris Maurer of Equality Florida. “Things like names, haircuts, clothes that people wear, or puberty blockers that try to delay the onset of puberty so that people have more time to consider these types of decisions.”
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Janet Jennings said her daughter Jazz wouldn’t be alive today without gender-affirming care.
“She knew with all her heart and soul that she was a girl. Transgender children are at risk: between 40 and 50% will attempt suicide. When they are told, ‘You can’t wear this, you can’t wear this, there’s no doctor to treat you,’ they become suicidal.”
Many of the speakers at the Florida Board of Medicine refer to this as “political theater” that came out of nowhere.
Anthony Verdugo, founder and executive director of the Christian Family Coalition (CFC) of Florida, disagrees.
“Once they become adults they can do whatever they want. But minors don’t have the mental capacity to make these life-changing decisions. Parents can’t stop a child from smoking, drinking or driving a car by the age of three.” Can’t allow it to run.”
The FDOH states that treatments such as puberty inhibitors and hormone therapy can have adverse health effects, including an increased risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, infertility, cancer and thrombosis.
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Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Council, the Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program issued a statement ahead of the meeting, saying the state surgeon general’s proposal was unconstitutional and illegal.
“However, the State Surgeon General’s request, partisan and politically motivated, is contrary to well-established medical guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria, such as those published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society, and United Excessive medical consent, both in the United States and internationally, and will effectively deny essential, medically necessary, and often critical care to transgender people, including transgender youth.”
statement continued
“Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Health Justice Project, Lambda Legal and the National Health Law Program urge the Florida Board of Medicine to stop politicizing people’s health care and not adopt guidelines for standard of care for treating gender dysphoria. What is contrary to this is the overwhelming and evidence-based consensus that medical care is safe, effective and medically necessary for the treatment of gender dysphoria.”
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(Local 10 News will provide more information on this developing story and on the outcome and updates of the meeting on the afternoon and evening news. Local10.com,
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