BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A state representative from Brevard County announced that he will introduce legislation next session that would make gender-confirming treatments on minors illegal in Florida.
Republican Rep. Randy Fine said in a Facebook post he would introduce legislation next year that would make it illegal to provide drugs or surgery to a minor “for the purpose of alleged ‘gender assignment.’”
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In the post, Fine said no child should be able to make a “fundamentally life-altering” decision before they are of age.
“If an adult wants to self-mutilate their body in pursuit of the fiction that they can defy both G-d and science, more power to them -- so long as they don’t expect me to pay for it,” he wrote.
I've had enough of this nonsense. Next session, I will help shepherd legislation to make it illegal to provide drugs...
Posted by State Representative Randy Fine on Monday, April 4, 2022
Fine also wrote that violators should face felony child abuse charges and the loss of their medical license.
Last September, Rep. Anthony Sabatini filed legislation that could prosecute doctors who perform gender-affirming surgeries on transgender children.
Under the bill he proposed, doctors who perform surgeries such as a vasectomy, sterilization, mastectomy or vaginoplasty could have receive criminal penalties. Hormone blockers and hormone therapy that use testosterone or estrogen would have also been criminalized.
Fine’s post comes days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the “Parental Rights in Education” bill — also dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — banning sexual identity discussion in school grades kindergarten through 3rd grade.
DeSantis held up examples of materials during a news conference that he said were found in Florida schools and were objectionable and would be prohibited under the new law, including a diagram called the “Genderbread Person” — a diagram which is used to help explain gender identity — and an excerpt from a children’s book called “Call Me Max” — which is about a transgender boy.
“This is inappropriate for kindergarteners and first graders and second graders. Parents do not want this going on in their schools,” DeSantis said.
This bill takes effect on July 1, 2022.