WASHINGTON, DC – The National Center for Transgender Equality and 118 other organizations are calling on the Florida Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine to reject proposed rules that would prohibit gender-affirming health care for transgender youth in the state.
“These proposed rules will upend lives and will prevent transgender youth from receiving age-appropriate and lifesaving health care,” said C.P. Hoffman (they/she), senior policy counsel for the National Center for Transgender Equality. “If these rules are adopted they will lead to dangerous discrimination against transgender people, who already face extreme hurdles to access health care. There is no legitimate reason for these rules to be adopted.”
The rules, as proposed, contradict guidance from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
Rules 64B8-0.019 and 64B15-14.014, which would prohibit treatments for gender dysphoria in minors by medical doctors and doctors of osteopathy, would create significant confusion for doctors licensed in Florida and other states and would mark the first time the boards have ever declared a medical practice area off limits.
“Political leaders are putting young transgender people at risk for no good reason,” Hoffman said. “The boards’ proposed rules likely violate federal law, Specifically Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.”
The sign-on letter is available HERE.
