Reports out of Florida and Tennessee are encouraging news in the battle against radical LGBTQ ideology — especially as it relates to the “transing” of kids. Two medical boards in Florida recently affirmed that state’s ban on genital and chemical mutilation of minors, and the Tennessee Senate passed a piece of legislation that would ban such barbarous practices in the Volunteer State.
While Republican Florida Governor — and assumed presidential candidate — Ron DeSantis prepares for legislation in the Sunshine State to statutorily ban “transgender” medical procedures — both surgical and chemical — for minors, the state has been moving in that direction for months. In April, the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, released guidance warning against such practices. That guidance stated:
Based on the currently available evidence, “encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.”
Further, the document released by Ladapo referenced “a lack of conclusive evidence” for “gender transitioning,” noted “the potential for long-term, irreversible effects,” and stated that an analysis of the benefits of hormonal interventions shows “a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias.”
In October, the Florida Board of Medicine voted to ban transgender drugs and surgeries for minors, but failed to close a loophole for state university experimentation. A new move by both the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine and the Florida Board of Medicine closes that loophole. As LifeSiteNews reports, citing an article by Florida’s Voice:
The February 10 joint meeting vote by the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine and the Florida Board of Medicine closes a loophole that allowed universities to give kids “puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery to treat gender dysphoria,” as part of clinical trials.
LifeSite News had previously reported on a January 31 news conference at which DeSantis decried the practice of medical professionals “giving teenagers, kids puberty blockers,” saying, “They’re doing sex change operations. And so we actually have, you know, young adults who went through this when they were minors, and they’re saying this is a huge mistake. And, in fact, it’s not evidence based.”
This move by the two medical boards puts Florida in a position to protect children from being little more than political fodder in a liberal political salvo against the traditional family. And Governor DeSantis is prepared to give this decision by the boards teeth. He repeated what he has said before to those who practice such “treatments,” saying, “If you’re performing those procedures on these minors, you’re gonna lose your medical license here in Florida.”
This move may also embolden Florida lawmakers to codify into law protections for minors where surgical and chemical mutilations are concerned.
That process is already underway in Tennessee, where the Tennessee Senate voted 26-6 Monday to pass the Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act. As LifeSite News reports, the act — which still faces passage in the Tennessee State House — would prohibit “doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones or performing gender-related surgeries on minors for the purpose of ‘gender transition,’ as well as allow patients and their families to sue a health practitioner for knowingly violating the law, and enable minors to bring a civil cause of action against parents who helped facilitate their ‘medical transition.’”
If it passes the House, the Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act will certainly face obstacles from the Left. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has stated that it plans to challenge the law in court if it passes.
The depths to which the Left is willing to stoop to strip vulnerable, confused minors from barbarous — and often irreversible — sexually mutilating “procedures” is astounding. This is especially true given that while there is no evidence of the medical or psychological benefits of such procedures, there is much evidence of their harm. As LifeSite News reported in a previous article about Florida’s move to protect kids from “trans” procedures:
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
On top of those issues, experts outside the medical establishment further warn that surgically or chemically reinforcing gender confusion imposes irreversible harm on children such as infertility, impairment of adult sexual function, and reduced life expectancy, as well as the psychological toll of being “locked into” physical alterations regardless of whether they change their minds when they mature, as attested to by many individuals who “detransitioned” back to their true sex.
The issue grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.
The Left, though, appears so committed to “transing” kids for political gain that the tragedies suffered by Martinez and countless others are little more than “collateral damage” in the building of their “brave new world.” Thankfully, states such as Florida and Tennessee are challenging the building of that dystopian world.
