A Knife In Our Back

The Republicans just took the first step in banning our healthcare coverage for children!

Florida Medical Board Votes to Ban Kids' Gender-Affirming Care
The board OK'd a new standard of care for treating minors with gender dysphoria, taking the first step toward banning gender-affirming care for them.
The Advocate
By Christopher Wiggns
August 5 2022

The Florida Board of Medicine Friday took a first step toward banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

The board voted to "consider" guidelines proposed by the state's surgeon general that reject standards of care endorsed by major medical associations, The Independent reports. The action doesn't limit such care immediately but starts the process of doing so. "The decision from the governor-appointed board initiates a formal rule-changing process that would deny trans youth from receiving such care and forcibly detransition them," the publication explains. "The process could take several months."

The guidance from Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says people under 18 should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone treatment, should not undergo gender-affirming surgery, and should not even transition socially. Doctors do not recommend surgery for this population, but treatment with puberty blockers and hormones is common (and largely reversible), as is social transition. Ladapo has been controversial for these guidelines and other matters, with former colleagues in California disputing his claims about treating COVID-19 patients there. He has recently released proposed rules to implement his gender-transition guidance.

Bull Sh*t!

All the major medical and psychiatric associations agree that denying treatment creates harm to the child. That includes American Academy of Pediatrics.

As for puberty blockers they have been around for more than 30 years! It is not some new experimental treatment… those are just lies promoted by the Republicans. An article in Very Well Health reported that,

Puberty blockers have been used for more than three decades to treat precocious puberty. They are generally considered to be both safe and effective. Research suggests that young people who have been on puberty blockers have normal reproductive function after they stop taking them.

The Advocate article goes on to say,

Ladapo has claimed that the current standards of transition-related care are based on questionable evidence, and the Florida Department of Health recently filed a petition stating the same thing, but that is not true. "A report from Vice found that all 12 citations in [Ladapo's] memo either distort the work that was cited or come from explicitly anti-trans sources," The Independent notes.

[…]

“This has been pushed to the board as a political maneuver,” Haller said. “Trans people have always existed, they will always exist, whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.”

Just another lying Republican!

Politico in an article about the proposal said,

University of Florida Professor and Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology Michael J. Haller, who testified during the hearing as an expert, called the proposal a political stunt.

“This has been pushed to the board as a political maneuver,” Haller told the board members. “Trans people have always existed, they will always exist, whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.”

[…]

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support gender-affirming care for adults and adolescents. But medical experts said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery. Instead, doctors are more likely to recommend counseling, social transitioning and hormone replacement therapy.

The proposed rule is the latest step taken by the DeSantis administration to tighten regulatory controls over gender-affirming care. Florida’s Medicaid regulator is also considering a rule that would block state-subsidized health care from paying for treatments of transgender people.

And one of the so called “experts” for the state…

Van Meter, an outspoken critic of gender-affirming care, had previously been disqualified as an expert by a Texas judge overseeing a divorce case where van Meter was set to testify on whether a transgender youth should receive puberty blockers.

This is nothing more than a hatchet job by DeSantis and his political cronies to garner votes from his evangelical Christian base, sadly for us trans children will dies or live a life of suffering in having to go through puberty.