FDOH Issues Politically Fueled Transgender “Guidance”

The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) released new guidance for treating Gender Dysphoria in children and adolescents on Tuesday. In their guidance, FDOH condemns the use of hormone blockers for youth as well as social transitioning. While trashing the federal guidelines, the Florida Surgeon General’s guidance cites studies which provide little evidence to support his claims or are marred with political and religious bias.

The guidance provides three specific directives in relation to the treatment of Gender Dysphoria in children and adolescents. The first is that “Social Gender Transition,” which is the term describing when someone takes on the social role of their identified gender, should not be a “treatment” option for children or adolescents. The cited materials refer to this as allowing a child to explore their gender identity and expression by using a different name, pronouns, hair style, clothing, etc. The alternative to this is pushing the child to adhere to characteristics generally associated with their gender assigned at birth. The guidance also indicated that anyone under 18 should not be given puberty blockers or hormone therapy. 

One of the articles that the Surgeon General cited lists three possible “treatment options” for gender dysphoria. One is social gender transition, one is physical transition involving hormones, surgery, etc, and the other is essentially conversion therapy, where a counselor works with the child to bring them back to the “right” gender identity (in this case, the one assigned at birth).

“In a politically motivated stunt, the Department of Health has shown that they do not have the lives of our transgender youth in mind.,” said Rand Hoch, President and founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council “They have willfully misread the research and disregarded the nationally established best practices in another desperate attempt to stick it to Washington like a petulant child with a parent.”

“The very research the Department of Health is referencing was reviewed with bias,” said Sean Conklin, Public Administration PhD Candidate at FAU and member of PBCHRC’s board of directors. “The results look at how many children continued to experience gender dysphoria in adulthood, which is essentially an irrelevant measure. The Surgeon General is attempting to say that because so few people ‘need’ the more advanced treatments that they should be disallowed.”

Conklin noted that the research mostly comes from conservative and religious academic journals. One study asserts that gender and sex are the same thing, and that there are only two sexes, therefore only two genders. Another study was a review published in the Linacre Quarterly, the official academic journal of the Catholic Medical Association, which seeks to explore the relationship between spirituality and medical ethics.The press release from the DOH specifically indicates that they intentionally reviewed research in order to counter the guidance from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which provides lifesaving programs across the country for people facing a myriad of healthcare issues. The guidance discusses clinical practices, knowing that readers will assume it’s referring to medical interventions, when clinical practices in the research refer almost exclusively to mental health practices in a clinical setting.

“The governor of what he declares ‘the freest state in these United States’ is once again sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong,” said Julie Seaver, Director of Compass LGBTQ+ Community Center in a post on facebook. “On Wednesday, Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health (DOH) issued bullshit guidance advising against medically necessary life saving measures for transgender children and teenagers. It was another mean-spirited effort to profit politically from struggling Floridians.”

But the Department of Health left out one critical issue in their guidance – that children and adolescents who do not get access to gender-affirming care often end up dead or facing other negative health outcomes due to the distress related to their identity. According to the Trevor Project, youth who have their identities invalidated by having their pronouns ignored in the home were twice as likely to attempt suicide as youth who did have their identity validated. Deny access to gender affirming care kills our children.

“FDOH should be aware that identity development is strongest in teenage years,” said Conklin. “Exploring different identities is necessary for healthy development. Allowing our youth to socially transition or block puberty can mean the difference between life and death. The guidance seems to suggest that conversion therapy is the only option the state will allow.”

In addition to this guidance, the Surgeon General released a “fact sheet” challenging the “academic rigor” of the research cited by HHS, ignoring the same flaw in the research they cited. While no one article is generalizable to all situations, the research supporting gender affirming care far outweighs the opposition.

This news comes not long after the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a branch of HHS and administrator of the National Ryan White HIV/AIDS Care Program, indicated that Ryan White funding can be used for gender affirming care for persons with HIV. AS transgender individuals are disproportionately burdened by HIV, this direction from the Department of Health deals a blow to both the transgender community and people living with HIV.

PBCHRC is watching the situation closely and will continue our work to ensure our youth are protected from conversion therapy and provided life-saving gender affirming care.