Federal judge strikes down part of Florida gender health care law

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A federal judge has struck down part of a Florida law regarding gender-affirming care this week, calling it unconstitutional and claiming it was created based on animus, not a legitimate state interest.

U.S. Judge Robert Hinkle blocked the state from enforcing the law, which state lawmakers passed in 2023, blocking the use of puberty blockers or hormones for minors “to affirm a person’s perception of his or her sex if that perception is inconsistent with the person’s natal sex.”

The law also restricted how health care workers can prescribe gender-affirming care to adults, allowing only physicians to provide the care, and banning telehealth as a means of beginning treatment, and restricts care by mental health workers other than psychiatrists or psychologists.

Several people, including parents of transgender minors, sued Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo over the law.

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Hinkle noted that the standards of care for people who are transgender as well as people dealing with gender dysphoria, are generally accepted among the medical community and top American medical institutions.

He also said that the state, as defendants in the case, admitted that stopping people from pursuing transgender identities was not “a legitimate state interest.”

Hinkle said there was proof the law was created with a “discriminatory purpose.”

“The defendants say the Legislature acted not to target transgenders but only to regulate specific medical procedures,” Hinkle wrote. “That is akin to saying that prior to Brown v. Board of Education, state legislatures acted not to target African Americans but only to regulate schools — and that this was not purposeful discrimination because all students, black and white equally, were required to go to school with students of their same race.”

Hinkle specifically pointed to Volusia County State Rep. Webster Barnaby’s speech during a House committee hearing where he called transgender Floridians who spoke “mutants living among us on Planet Earth” as evidence of the animus against the transgender community.

“Lord rebuke you Satan and all of your demons and imps that come parade before us. That’s right: I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world,” Barnaby had said at the April 2023 hearing.

Hinkle also rebuked Gov. Ron DeSantis, Ladapo, and other state lawmakers for making false statements about gender-affirming care.

“Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs,” Hinkle wrote. “But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender. In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished. To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Hinkle was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ communications director, said in a post on X Tuesday afternoon that the state would appeal the ruling.

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