TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – During a news conference in Citrus County on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis discussed his response to a federal appeals court ruling that allowed a state ban on transgender treatments for minors to go into effect.
At the conference, a reporter asked DeSantis about the ruling, saying critics were claiming the law (SB 254) would “strain the health care system and harm patients.”
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DeSantis’ response was as follows:
“It is the mutilation of minors that is harming people. It is wrong to do this. You do not take some 14-year-old and pump them with hormone blockers and try to change their sex with an operation. It’s wrong. People that have gone through that, there’s so much lasting damage that has happened. It’s not based on sound science.
In fact, most of these countries in Europe that are more liberal than the U.S., like Sweden, they have pulled the plug on this. The United Kingdom pulled the plug on this. So what we did is protect young people. And here’s the secret on this: there’s a lot of people that make money on these surgeries. That’s why it’s going on. You’ll have a parent... look, when you’re at that age, that is a tough age. There’s a lot of things that happen, and so as a parent, it’s not easy to navigate that. I mean, I think anyone can appreciate that. Mine are a lot younger than that, but it’s like, I know once you get into that.
And so you want to be able to help your kid, and so you’ll go to this, a doctor will say, ‘This is what you have to do. You have to do this surgery to try to change their body parts.’ And that’s based on junk science. It’s based on ideology, which is causing a lot of damage to folks. And what we did was put a stop to it in the state of Florida. We’re not going to be a cottage industry for the mutilation of minors. That is not happening on my watch.
What we did by doing that is to just recognize — I mean, how is it, how could we possibly say as a state that you cannot have a tattoo at age 14; you would not be able to go sit at a bar and drink beer at age 16; you wouldn’t be able to do that, but somehow, you could have these mutilation procedures where they’re trying to change your body parts and try to change your sex at age 15 or 14? How is it? And because it’s obviously inappropriate in these other situations, of course, it’s inappropriate here.
Now, we had a judge initially say that was somehow unconstitutional to not allow, which — first of all — no one would have said that it was unconstitutional even 10 years ago. (His ruling) conflicted with what the 11th Circuit had already done, which is our federal court of appeals that covers Florida, Georgia and Alabama, because they upheld Alabama’s law that was very similar. So we knew on appeal that we would win, and so (the law) is going into effect. But that is going to provide protection for people in very vulnerable situations.
We are not going to let these people who make a lot of money off doing these things be able to do that. And you know what happens is: they do a procedure at age 15 for some, and a lot of the dysphoria that happens with young people resolves itself by the time they become 18 or 19. That’s like 80-some percent of the cases. Why would you do this — these irreversible surgeries — when it’s likely to resolve itself anyway.
What happens is then they get older, they have huge problems. Some of them are sterile. They get sterilized with this. Others have all kinds of other physical problems. It causes emotional problems, but (doctors) make money off of it. You should be able to sue for damage that is done because I think it’s a false bill of goods that’s being done. And we’re actually now finally starting to see courts produce or accept some of the evidence that shows this is a bill of goods.
I think it was a no-brainer that this was upheld. It should be upheld. And I think that the United States is lagging behind many other industrialized countries. A lot of these other countries dabbled in this with the sex changes for minors, and they recognized that it was doing a lot of damage — that there was no solid evidence-based medicine to support it — and that they discontinued it. So Florida? We’re kind of one of the leaders here in the United States.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
The 2-1 decision was issued by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The law revived by the ruling prohibits transgender minors from being prescribed puberty blockers and hormonal treatments, even with their parents’ permission.
It also required that adults may only receive these types of treatments from a doctor — not from a nurse or other type of medical practitioner. Adults who want the treatments must also be in the room with the physician when signing the consent form.
For minors, the only treatments at issue are puberty-blocking treatments and cross-sex hormones — giving testosterone to someone assigned female at birth, for example. Those who were undergoing treatment when the law was adopted in May 2023 were allowed to continue. Surgery, which is rare for minors, was still blocked.
The Florida law comes amid major scrutiny of these types of treatments, which some medical experts have argued have the potential for long-term, irreversible impacts on children or otherwise run a high risk of harm.
So far, 26 states have passed laws restricting or banning transgender treatments for minors. They are as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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