Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday during a press conference on higher education reform that the state is looking into revoking medical licenses for performing “sex changes” on minors.
“You have – and this is sad, but this is going on – you’re having, in our society, they’re giving teenagers, kids, puberty blockers,” he said. “They’re changing their – they’re doing sex-change operations. And so, we actually have, you know, young adults who went through this when they were minors, and they’re saying this is a huge mistake.”
He also said the way to “handle” minors dealing with gender dysphoria is to “to provide whatever counseling is needed, not to hack off their body parts,” going on to say that, “that is not a solution to the problem, that is mutilation and it is wrong.”
However, Reuters reported last year that gender-affirming surgery “is uncommon in patients under age 18,” and that “some children’s hospitals and gender clinics don’t offer surgery to minors, requiring that they be adults before deciding on procedures that are irreversible and carry a heightened risk of complications.”
That’s the case at Boston Children’s Hospital, which is home to the nation’s first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program, according to its website. All genital surgeries at the hospital are only performed on patients age 18 and older. Other resources and treatments – such as counseling and hormone therapy – are also offered at the hospital.
“You may be aware that in states across the country there is a recent increase in proposed legislation aiming to restrict the rights of transgender and gender diverse youth,” reads a message on the Boston Children’s Hospital website. “Many of these bills aim to restrict access to medical care and limit children and adolescents who identify as gender diverse from participation in sports.”
Some people have received gender confirming surgeries when they are minors.
According to a message shared by Mount Sinai in New York, Jazz Jennings was working on losing weight for her confirmation surgery with doctors from the hospital in 2018. People reported in 2020 that Jennings had received her first gender confirmation surgery at age 17.
“I’m proud of my scars and love my body just the way it is.
I call them my battle wounds because they signify the strength and perseverance it took to finally complete my transition,” said Jennings in a 2019 Instagram post.
DeSantis said Tuesday that “we’ve worked through our… medical licensing board to say that you, in the state of Florida, if you’re performing those procedures on these minors, you’re gonna lose your medical license here in Florida. So that is happening.”
He said he plans to work with the legislature to put those plans into statute.
“When you’re talking about publicly-funded institutions, those are not things that I think are an appropriate use of your tax dollars,” the governor said.
DeSantis also referenced Sweden’s debates about gender affirming treatment last year. The Guardian has reported on these debates. While he brought up puberty blockers, DeSantis did not specifically say that medical licenses would be revoked for prescribing them.
“In children, puberty-blocking hormones can suppress the physical changes associated with puberty until they and their parents are ready to affirm their gender,” Boston Children’s Hospital explained. “In adults and adolescents who have passed puberty, hormones can help encourage the development of gender affirming physical traits.”
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “most major U.S. medical associations, including those in the fields of pediatrics, endocrinology, psychiatry, and psychology, have issued statements recognizing the medical necessity and appropriateness of gender affirming care for youth, typically noting harmful effects of denying access to these services.”
During the press conference Tuesday, DeSantis also said “I think we’ve been a trendsetter for many,” and cited “what we’ve done to insure education not indoctrination in our curriculum, such as dealing with the gender ideology,” and Critical Race Theory.
Last year, Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education bill.
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