Puberty-delaying medications, hormone replacement treatment, and sex reassignment surgery for children have been formally banned by the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine and the Board of Medicine.
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After a five-hour discussion in which participants and others voiced their concerns during a board meeting, the decision was cast on Friday. In August, the boards decided to begin a 120-day process to establish rules for treating children with gender dysmorphia. Losing a doctor’s medical license is one of the possible consequences of breaking the new standards. The Washington Post reports that groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychology Association, and the Endocrine Society have approved hormone therapy and puberty blockers for kids.
According to their findings, transgender youth could have less emotional discomfort and a lower risk of suicide thanks to the therapy. The Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Governor Ron DeSantis released guidelines in April outlining the reasons why minors shouldn’t take the therapies, as well as using preferred pronouns or a new name, changing their name, and changing their clothing style.
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“Systematic reviews on hormonal treatment for young people show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias. A paper published in the International Review of Psychiatry states that 80% of those seeking clinical care will lose their desire to identify with the nonbirth sex. One review concludes that “hormonal treatments for transgender adolescents can achieve their intended physical effects, but evidence regarding their psychosocial and cognitive impact is generally lacking.”
DeSantis also claimed that doctors were “disfiguring” children by recommending these treatments and pushing the idea of gender reassignment after families showed concern about their child’s gender dysmorphia.
“They don’t tell you what that is… They are giving very young girls double mastectomies, they want to castrate these young boys. Both from the health and children’s wellbeing perspective, you don’t disfigure 10, 12, and 13-year-old kids based on gender dysphoria, 80 percent of it resolves anyways by the time they get older… So why would you be doing this?”
Those who attended the committee meetings included individuals who were detransitioning and expressed how they continued to experience struggles with their mental health. Chloe Cole explained to the committee that she started transitioning at 12 and received a double mastectomy at 15 but regrets having the surgery.
“I want to be a mother someday, and yet I can never naturally feed my future children. My breasts were beautiful. And now they have been incinerated for nothing.”