On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that parts of Florida’s law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender children and limiting gender confirming healthcare for adults are unconstitutional and should not be enforced.
These restrictions were enacted into law in 2023 by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis who prohibited all persons under the age of 18 from receiving puberty-blockers or hormone therapy as treatments for gender dysphoria, except children who had already begun to have their gender-affirming care before May 17th, 2023 but with new constraints.
It is one among many pieces of legislation that Republicans have passed in recent years to control transgender individuals’ lives. The bill also imposed additional limits on adult access to interventions designed to affirm their genders.
All these elements are violations of U.S Constitution’s equal protection guarantee according to Tallahassee District Judge Robert Hinkle; he added that some members in the Florida legislature had “plainly acted from old-fashioned discriminatory animus.”
“Gender identity is real,” he wrote in his order declaring it unconstitutional to discriminate against trans people. “With time, discrimination against transgender persons will abate just like racism and misogyny did.”
The state plans to appeal the decision as announced by a spokesperson for De Santis; such healthcare was then referred as one aspect of ‘radical, new age “gender ideology”’.
“History will view this fad with revulsion for having done irreparable harm to children,” according to Julia Freundlich, an assistant press secretary representing the governor’s office.
The course stated that barring medical practices such as those prohibited by Florida is consistent with established therapies for gender dysphoria recognized by doctors treating patients identifying themselves as transgender.
