Despite DeSantis claims, suit doesn’t challenge FL’s ban on gender-affirming surgeries for minors

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Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed gender-affirming surgeries for minors Thursday when responding to a question about a federal appellate court’s decision to temporarily allow Florida to enforce its ban on hormone replacement therapies for minors.

However, the lawsuit that parents of transgender children brought against the state does not seek surgeries for minors. Instead, the plaintiffs argued against the ban on hormone therapies and puberty blockers, which DeSantis briefly mentioned during a press conference in Crystal River before delving into surgeries.

“You want to be able to help your kid, and so a doctor will say, ‘This is what you have to do. You have to do this surgery to try to change their body parts,'” DeSantis said. “And that’s based on junk science. It’s based on ideology. It’s causing a lot of damage to folks, and what we did was put a stop to it in the state of Florida.”

Between 2016 and 2020, 7.7% of people who underwent gender-affirming surgery in the United States were aged 12 to 18 years, according to a 2023 study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA.

DeSantis went on to claim victory in the suit. But although the appellate court lifted a trial court’s block on the ban on Monday, the courts have yet to decide the constitutionality of 2023 law in question, SB 254 .

DeSantis has frequently railed against the evil of gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

“You would not be able to go sit at a bar and drink beer at age 16. Even with your parent you wouldn’t be able to do that, but somehow you could have these mutilation procedures where they’re trying to change your body parts and try to change your sex at age 15 or 14,” he said Thursday.

“Because it’s obviously inappropriate in those other situations. Of course, it’s inappropriate here. Now we had a judge initially say that that was somehow unconstitutional to not allow, which, first of all, that is like no one would have said that it was unconstitutional even 10 years ago,” the governor continued.

“It conflicted with what the Eleventh Circuit had already done, which is our federal court of appeals that covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, because they upheld Alabama’s law that was very similar. So, we knew on appeal that we would win. We were able to win that.”

Trial court ruling

Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the ban on hormone therapies for minors and the restrictions for adults within the law were unconstitutional. However, in his June decision , Hinkle wrote that his ruling wouldn’t change the ban on surgeries for minors because the plaintiffs hadn’t challenged that provision.

Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the human rights organizations litigating the case, said the governor’s focus on surgeries when talking about the suit is deceitful.

“It is really truly shameful. This is a serious issue,” Minter said in a phone interview. “We’re talking about a very small group of young people who have a serious medical condition. They are seeking medication, treatment — nothing to do with surgery. And his statements are not just misleading. This is a blatant lie.”