Florida Board of Medicine, packed with DeSantis appointees, bans gender-affirming healthcare for minors

March 8, 2023 - As part of the state's multi-pronged effort to deny medically necessary healthcare for transgender Floridians, the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine have promulgated discriminatory rules restricting access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The Board of Medicine rule will go into effect on March 16, 2023. The effective date of the Board of Osteopathic Medicine has not been set.

The state chose yet again to bypass the legislative process by utilizing political appointees to enact rules to deny transgender individuals access to medical care. Further, during the rulemaking process Gov. Ron DeSantis packed the Boards with hand-picked individuals known to be aligned with his views on gender-affirming medical care. SLC will continue to hold accountable those who abuse their power and who seek to strip transgender Floridians of medically necessary, evidence-based, gender-affirming healthcare.

The efforts to ban the treatment of gender dysphoria in the state of Florida began in April 2022 with the “guidance” issued by the Florida Department of Health (FDOH). The “guidance" recommended against not only all medical treatment for gender dysphoria, but also encouraged the prohibition of social transition (which refers to when a person expresses themselves in accordance with their gender identity, through clothing, hair style, use of affirmed name/pronouns, etc.), making it the most extreme position taken by any state in the country at that time.

What followed was a sham investigation by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to reach the predetermined conclusion that treatment for gender dysphoria was “experimental” and, therefore, not medically necessary. That determination, memorialized in a “GAPMS Report” published on June 2, 2022, led to the promulgation and adoption of a rule banning Medicaid from covering treatment for gender dysphoria for all adults and minors who receive their healthcare through Florida’s Medicaid program.

Shortly after the discriminatory Medicaid ban went into effect, SLC filed a federal lawsuit—alongside our partners at Lambda Legal, Florida Health Justice Project (FHJP), the National Health Law Program, and pro bono counsel Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman—challenging the ban as unconstitutional and in violation of federal laws. The case, Dekker v. Weida, 4:22-cv-00325 (N.D. Fla., J. Hinkle, 2022), is set for trial starting on May 9, 2023, in Tallahassee. 

Relying on the same scientifically flawed, thoroughly debunked “GAPMS Report,” Florida’s Surgeon General demanded that the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine “establish a standard of care” to ban providers from treating their transgender minor patients with evidence-based, medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria. 

 SLC has been actively involved in advocating for the transgender community through every step of the process, helping coordinate the efforts across the state to elevate the voices of medical providers with actual expertise in the treatment of gender dysphoria, individuals who have benefited tremendously from receiving gender-affirming care, and the parents of transgender minors in Florida who stand to be harmed by these discriminatory rules.

SLC attended every meeting, public workshop, and public hearing to speak out against these cruel bans. We also led the effort to facilitate the submission of thousands of public comments in opposition to the proposed rules, ensuring the voices of the impacted community were included in the administrative rulemaking process and the public record. SLC also submitted our own comprehensive and extensive public comments in opposition to the Proposed Rule for the Medicaid Ban, and alongside our partners at FHJP, in opposition to the Proposed Rules by the Board of Medicine (here) and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine (here). 

The Public Hearing on the Proposed Rules took place on Feb. 10, 2023, in Tallahassee. SLC's Director of Transgender Rights, Simone Chriss, was asked to speak first and, in her testimony before the Boards, she urged them not to play politics with people's health and well-being. Her testimony can be viewed here, starting at the 28:10 mark and ending at 39:36.

SLC is working with national partners in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality to develop federal litigation challenging the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine rules banning doctors from providing treatment for gender dysphoria for transgender minors.

Chriss assisted NPR national special correspondent Melissa Block with a story on the discriminatory Florida rules, which was heard on NPR's Morning Edition, and featured several of Chriss's clients and the medical providers she works closely with through our Medical Legal Partnership. As Chriss vowed on national public radio, we will never stop fighting to protect the rights of trans youth in the state of Florida.