Breaking News! Florida Passes Bill Affecting Parenting Rights.

All around the country the Republicans are pushing so called “Parent Rights” except of you are a trans parent or a parent of a trans child.

No, Florida can’t ‘kidnap’ trans kids under proposed law, but it does affect custody disputes 

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

• Florida S.B. 254 broadly prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender minors and restricts access for adults. A subsection of the bill would alter a child custody jurisdiction law that most states share. 
• Under the bill, Florida courts could temporarily make custody decisions for children in Florida who are receiving gender-affirming care, if their custody order was from another state. But the state that made the original custody agreement would have the final say. 
• A second provision in the bill relates to a warrant to take physical custody of a child who is at risk of serious harm, including gender-affirming care. But sources disagree on the provision’s scope and whom it can impact.

PolitiFact

By Grace Abels

May 4, 2023

Are critics right that this new law would give the Sunshine State permission to take trans kids away from their parents? 

The bill does not grant the state unilateral power to "kidnap" or take custody of a child receiving gender-affirming care from a family. The Disney World example would not apply. But the bill does change how custody disputes between parents are resolved, especially when another state issued the original custody order.

But the legislation contains broad and confusing language that has left legal experts divided about its potential impact. 

Critics worry that, if enacted, the law may encourage parents to seek emergency refuge in Florida if they disagree with their co-parent’s decision to help a transgender child seek gender-affirming care. If enacted, the law is likely to be challenged in court. 

[…]

One clause stoking fear grants Florida courts the power of "temporary emergency jurisdiction" over children in the state receiving or "threatened with being subjected to" gender-affirming care.

This is really scary! It sound like the is so broadly written that no one what is allowed and not allowed. It sends chills up and down my spine. This is something authoritarian governments do! Putin’s Russian just took thousands of Ukrainian children away from their parents.

S.B. 254 adds one more exception to the list: A state can take emergency jurisdiction when a child has been "subjected to or is threatened with being subjected to," gender-affirming health care in the form of puberty blockers, hormones and in some rare cases, surgeries.

Bernard Perlmutter, a law professor and co-director of the Children & Youth Law Clinic at the University of Miami, argued that this new addition doesn’t meet the same "harm" standard as abandonment, mistreatment or abuse.

"It's supposed to be very parsimoniously exercised," Perlmutter said. "You don't use this to exert sweeping powers over the parents. It has to really be predicated upon actual harm to the child." 

And DeSantis is bragging on national television what he is doing to trans children!

So much for “Parental Rights” it only means what the Republicans want. Not what is best for the child.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) writes,

Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, condemns Florida legislators for sending an extreme gender affirming care ban, SB 254, to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s desk for signature or veto. The House passed SB 254 today 83-28.

Even among the crowded field of extreme and damaging bans on best practice, age-appropriate health care, this bill stands out as particularly mean-spirited. SB 254 is an extreme, unprecedented attack on transgender people, their health care, and the families and health care providers who care for them.

[...]

This extreme ban contradicts guidelines recommended by every major medical association – representing over 1.3 million doctors in the United States – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 

In an article on WTLV First Coast News webpage they say,

A group of parents of transgender youth is fighting back.

The group has two lawsuits against the state.

One challenges the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine's rules banning doctors from prescribing gender-affirming care to minors.

Simone Chriss, the attorney representing the parents, says the ruling was put into the senate bill.

"But, the piece that we are challenging under our existing lawsuit on behalf of the seven families we're representing is the provision that bans doctors from prescribing this care and threatens them with the penalty of both losing their license to practice medicine but also with a felony," Chriss said.

The parents are asking a federal court to block the bill before it goes into effect.  

"Yet these parents are being stripped of their most fundamental deeply rooted right to make medical decisions that are in the best interest of their children aligned with what their children's medical providers are recommending," Chriss said.

 ***

Not all politicians will follow the new law…

Florida mayors pledge support for LGBTQ community amid passage of restrictive bills

Mayors from Orlando, Tampa and more signed the pledge, according to GLSEN.

ABC News

ByKiara Alfonseca

May 4, 2023

Florida mayors across the state are speaking out in support of LGBTQ rights in light of several bills targeting the community that have been passed by the state legislature and are heading to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

At least eight mayors from Orlando, Miami Beach, Tampa, Tallahassee and more have signed the pledge in support of the LGBTQ advocacy organization GLSEN and its Rise Up campaign, according to the group.

Several local leaders issued city proclamations, which promised "safe learning environments that include and affirm all children, including LGBTQ+ students," one proclamation read.

"I was elected to be mayor for every resident of Gainesville, and it is important to me that all our neighbors, particularly the youngest and most vulnerable, feel welcome and safe in our community," Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward told ABC News in a statement.

He continued, "I support the well-being and healthy development of every person in our community through the guarantee of basic human rights."

Boy is this going piss off DeSantis and we know how the governor punishes those who cross him! Will he start to remove mayors? Just like he did with other elected officials?

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Meanwhile up north....

Maryland signs law to protect trans healthcare: ‘No one should have to justify their own humanness’

Maryland has bucked the worrying trend of rising anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States by signing abortion and trans healthcare protections into law.

Pink News

By Emily Chudy

May 5, 2023

The state’s Democratic governor, Wes Moore, enacted several bills on Wednesday (3 May) which will protect gender-affirming healthcare and abortion rights, NPR reported.

The ground-breaking laws include legislation that allows transgender people in the state to use Medicaid (state-funded health insurance) to cover gender-affirming care, at a time when several other states, including Florida and Alabama, have gone out of their way to limit access such care for trans youth. 

Moore signed six bills in total, with one creating a referendum aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution for the 2024 election, and another requiring confidentiality of patients seeking an abortion in the Free State.

The legislation provides vital protection for those travelling from less-liberal states to seek an abortion.

The repealing of the landmark case of Roe vs Wade last year means several states have restricted abortion access, with some even attempting to stop their citizens travelling elsewhere for the procedure.

Moore explained at the signing: “We are living at a time when the Supreme Court is actively working to take Americans’ rights away instead of expanding them. We are living at a time when more than half the states in our country are moving toward banning or severely restricting abortion access.”

Gee can you tell the difference between Red and Blue states?