TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida House’s Health and Human Services Committee is set to discuss the effects of gender dysphoria treatments on minors during a meeting on Tuesday.
The panel of discussion will feature a new rule proposed by the Florida Board of Medicine, which states:
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According to the committee, a presentation by endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw will detail the consequences of many gender dysphoria treatments in children, including puberty hormone blockers, social transitioning and surgical modification.
Laidlaw’s presentation shows that puberty blockers can disrupt normal brain development and normal bone development, along with sexual dysfunction and infertility. Cross sex hormones can also increase the risk of heart attacks and death due to cardiovascular disease in patients, the presentation says.
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The presentation also cautions against the use of such treatments, pointing to a Swedish study that found that a sex-reassigned group of patients had 19 times the rate of completed suicides compared to the general population in Sweden.
Instead, Laidlaw argues in the presentation that gender dysphoric youth can instead be helped by identifying and properly treating psychological comorbidities, such as autism, depression, anxiety, physical or sexual abuse, family problems, self harm or bipolar disorder.
“We do not have the technology to make a male become a female or a female become a male,” the presentation reads. “We do not know the long term outcomes of these medical/surgical interventions. No long term studies to assess the degree of harm in this age group.”
The committee meeting is also expected to see personal accounts from others involved on the issue, including medical staff and a detransitioned 18-year-old named Chloe Cole.
The meeting is scheduled to be held from 1-3 p.m. You can read through the full meeting packet below.
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