TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A group of parents and their transgender children asked a federal court Wednesday to block a Florida law signed hours earlier by Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Signed Wednesday at a Christian school in Tampa, SB 254 also grants state courts “emergency jurisdiction over a child present in (Florida) if the child has been subjected to or is threatened with being subjected to sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures” such as puberty blockers or surgery, respectively.
This latest development is an expansion of a complaint filed in March by four Florida families — Doe V. Ladapo — challenging the state medical establishment’s recent rule changes banning doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors, with plantiffs proceeding anonymously to protect their children’s privacy, according to GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.
Doe v. Ladapo claims the rules “violate the rights of parents to make medical decisions to ensure the health and wellbeing of their adolescent children,” adding they are unconstitutional and discriminatory.
[TRENDING: Become a News 6 Insider]
As those rules were signed into state law Wednesday via SB 254, the complaint now requests a temporary restraining order in federal court blocking the law from being enforced.
Defendants cannot demonstrate any rational basis, much less an important or compelling one, for the transgender medical bans which prevent transgender adolescents from obtaining safe and effective medically necessary healthcare.
...
The treatment for gender dysphoria is highly effective. Longitudinal studies have shown that transgender children with gender dysphoria who receive essential medical care, including puberty blockers and hormones, show levels of mental health and stability consistent with those of non-transgender children. Lily Durwood, et al., Mental Health and Self-Worth in Socially Transitioned Transgender Youth, 56 J. Am. Acad. Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 116 (2017); Kristina Olson, et al., Mental Health of Transgender Children Who are Supported in Their Identities, 137 Pediatrics 1 (2016). In contrast, transgender children with gender dysphoria who do not receive appropriate medical care are at risk of serious harm, including dramatically increased rates of suicidality and serious depression.
Civil No. 4:23-cv-00114-RH-MAF | Pages 4-5, 18
Plaintiffs seek in part that the court declares transgender medical bans violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
One plaintiff, Fiona Foe, is an Orange County resident. She’s described in the lawsuit as the mother of a 10-year-old transgender girl.
Among the lawsuit’s defendants are Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, members of the Florida Board of Medicine, members of the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine, Attorney General Ashley Moody and all 20 state attorneys.
Read the lawsuit below.
Doe v Ladapo Second Amended Complaint by Brandon Hogan on Scribd
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: