The New York Times includes an article: “Judge Sides With Families Fighting Florida’s Ban on Gender Care for Minors—A federal judge wrote that the plaintiffs suing to block the new law are “likely to prevail on their claim that the prohibition is unconstitutional.”
A federal judge in Florida issued a scathing assessment of the state’s ban on gender transition care for minors, asserting in a ruling that the families with transgender children who sued the state are “likely to prevail on their claim that the prohibition is unconstitutional.”
Judge Robert L. Hinkle of Federal District Court in Tallahassee ruled specifically that three transgender children can be prescribed puberty blockers despite the new state law, which also adds new hurdles for adults who seek similar care.
But as legal challenges have been mounted to new restrictions on transition care that have been enacted across the country, Judge Hinkle’s ruling exemplifies the kind of chilly reception that the bans may receive from judges.
“Gender identity is real,” Judge Hinkle wrote, adding that “proper treatment” can include mental health therapy followed by puberty blockers and hormone treatments.
“Florida has adopted a statute and rules that prohibit these treatments even when medically appropriate.”
The judge issued a preliminary injunction in response to an emergency request by the families of the three children. They and others had sued the state of Florida in March over an administrative ban on gender transition care for minors, and then widened their suit to take in the new law after Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed it May 17.
The plaintiffs had urged Judge Hinkle specifically to block one part of the law that bars doctors and nurses from prescribing or administering transition-related medication to children, and another part that exposes medical providers to criminal liability and professional discipline for doing so.
The injunction granted by Judge Hinkle does not apply to other aspects of the far-reaching legislation, which also bars gender-transition surgery for minors, alters child custody statutes to treat transition care as equivalent to child abuse, and forbids the use of state funds to pay for transition care.
Even so, the judge wrote dismissively of the arguments offered by the state, calling them “a laundry list of purported justifications for the statute and rules” that were “largely pretextual and, in any event, do not call for a different result.”
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