Florida Health Dept. Attacks All Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth
issued guidelines arguing against any gender-confirming treatment for minors, even social transition.The guidelines, which are not legally binding, recommend that no one under 18 should be prescribed puberty blockers or hormones, or undergo gender-confirmation surgery.
The latter was not generally performed on minors before the guidelines. The department also says that social transition — which includes such things as gender presentation and use of one’s preferred name and pronouns “should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.”The Florida recommendations, released Wednesday and approved by Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis, are in reaction to a fact sheet issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs outlining the benefits of gender-affirming care.“The federal government’s medical establishment releasing guidance failing at the most basic level of academic rigor shows that this was never about health care,” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said in a press release. “It was about injecting political ideology into the health of our children.
Children experiencing gender dysphoria should be supported by family and seek counseling, not pushed into an irreversible decision before they reach 18.”However, the effects of puberty blockers are reversible, and hormone treatment is at least partially reversible.
