A group of Florida families has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on medically necessary healthcare for their transgender children. The ban, which went into effect last month, has caused significant harm to the children through canceled doctor’s appointments and denials of treatment, according to the parents who filed the motion for a preliminary injunction.
The plaintiffs argue that the ban unlawfully strips them of their right to make informed decisions about their children’s medical treatment and violates the equal protection rights of transgender youth by denying them medically necessary, doctor-recommended healthcare. The ban was put in place through rules finalized by the state’s Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine, which contradict guidelines recommended by every major medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association.
The seven parents challenging the ban, who are all proceeding under pseudonyms to protect their children’s privacy, have been joined by three additional families in an amended complaint filed this week. They are represented by Southern Legal Counsel, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign.
Similar bans on established medical care for transgender youth have been blocked by federal judges in Alabama and Arkansas, and the Florida ban is already having a devastating impact on families, according to Simone Chriss, Director of Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel.
“Transgender adolescents are being denied access to critical medical care, and parents are being forced to sit by and watch their children suffer preventable harm. The Florida Medical Boards and Surgeon General have not only failed to fulfill their own duty to protect the health and wellbeing of transgender youth in this state, but they have also blocked the parents of those youth from exercising their fundamental right to do so,” said Chriss.
The ban has also been criticized by Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, who says that it ignores decades of clinical research and strips parents of their right to make informed decisions about their children’s medical care.
“Florida has crossed a dangerous line by letting this ban go into effect. Parents, not the government, should be in charge of directing their children’s healthcare. The state of Florida is interfering with family privacy and decision-making, and children and parents are suffering because of it,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
The ban on established medical care for transgender youth in Florida must be overturned to ensure that parents are able to make informed decisions about their children’s medical care and to protect the health and wellbeing of transgender adolescents in the state.
