Florida panel backs ban on gender-affirming care for minors at contentious meeting

ORLANDO, Fla. — After five hours discussing proposed restrictions on gender-affirming care, members of a key state medical committee cut short a contentious public meeting in Orlando — exiting as many in the crowd chanted, “Their blood is on your hands!”

A joint rules panel of the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine met Friday at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport for a workshop on potential guidelines limiting gender-affirming care in Florida.

Although the panel did not finalize its proposed rules, members signaled support for prohibiting puberty blockers, cross-hormonal treatment and gender-affirming surgery as methods to treat gender dysphoria in patients under the age of 18.

Because they could not agree on whether to exclude from the ban gender-affirming treatments that are part of clinical trials and research, members recommended further discussion. The proposed rule will be reviewed again in the coming weeks when the panel will also decide when the measure will take effect.

The meeting ended an hour short of the time allotted, which led to a contentious exchange among board members, supporters, and critics of the recommendation.

“We were shut down,” said Abigael Hart, a transgender woman from Tampa. “They got one part … that got to say what they were going to say and the residents of the state were erased.”

The panel stopped hearing testimonies despite several people demanding to be heard, as a majority of the testimonies brought forward prior to the meeting’s abrupt end were in support of the prohibition of gender-affirming care.

Friday’s meeting came at the request of Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. Earlier this year, the Florida Health Department issued a guideline for gender-affirming care in the state, advising against puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries for minors. The guideline went against the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Health of Human Services.

Among the practitioners opposing the proposal was Kristin Dayton, a certified pediatrician and pediatric endocrinologist.

Dayton said the decision to prescribe puberty blockers is only applied after multiple assessments and that transgender adults who get access to treatment during adolescence face fewer mental health problems.

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