Judge overturns Florida law blocking treatment for transgender youth

Ron DeSantis gestures while speaking into microphones, a large bronze state seal on the wall and an American flag behind him.

By Terry Spencer

June 11, 2024 1:59 PM PT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a 2023 Florida law that blocked gender-affirming care for transgender minors and severely restricted such treatment for adults, calling the statute unconstitutional.

Senior Judge Robert Hinkle said the state went too far when it barred transgender minors from being prescribed puberty blockers and hormonal treatments with their parents’ permission. He also stopped the state from requiring that transgender adults receive treatment only from doctors, and not from registered nurses or other qualified medical practitioners. And he barred the state’s ban on online treatment for transgender adults.

Hinkle said transgender people are constitutionally entitled to the legitimate treatment they need, and quoted the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in likening those who oppose this right to those who were once against equality for minorities and women.

“Some transgender opponents invoke religion to support their position, just as some once invoked religion to support their racism or misogyny,” Hinkle wrote in his 105-page decision. “Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs. But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender.

“In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished,” he continued. “To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office blasted Hinkle’s ruling, issuing a statement calling it “erroneous” and vowing to appeal.

“Through their elected representatives, the people of Florida acted to protect children in this state, and the Court was wrong to override their wishes,” the statement said. “As we’ve seen here in Florida, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, there is no quality evidence to support the chemical and physical mutilation of children. These procedures do permanent, life-altering damage to children, and history will look back on this fad in horror.”

But those who had sued the state celebrated the decision.

“I’m so relieved the court saw there is no medical basis for this law — it was passed just to target transgender people like me and try to push us out of Florida,” Lucien Hamel, a transgender man, said in a statement.

“This is my home. I’ve lived here my entire life,” he said. “This is my son’s home. I can’t just uproot my family and move across the country. The state has no place interfering in people’s private medical decisions, and I’m relieved that I can once again get the healthcare that I need here in Florida.”

A mother of one of the children who sued said, “This ruling means I won’t have to watch my daughter needlessly suffer because I can’t get her the care she needs.”

“Seeing Susan’s fear about this ban has been one of the hardest experiences we’ve endured as parents,” said the woman, who was identified in court documents only as Jane Doe and her daughter as Susan Doe to protect their privacy. “All we’ve wanted is to take that fear away and help her continue to be the happy, confident child she is now.”

DeSantis signed the law last year as he was gearing up for his run for the Republican presidential nomination with a campaign that was based largely on such culture wars.

“We never did this through all of human history until like, what, two weeks ago? Now this is something?” he told cheering supporters as he signed the bill. “They’re having third-graders declare pronouns? We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida.”

At trial, Florida’s attorneys conceded that the state could not stop someone from pursuing a transgender identity, but argued that it could regulate medical care.

For minors, the only treatments at issue were puberty-blocking treatments and cross-sex hormones. Those who were undergoing treatment when the law was adopted in May 2023 were allowed to continue. Surgery, which is rare for minors, was also blocked.

For adults, the law said such treatment had to be from a physician rather than an advanced practice registered nurse or other professional. Patients were required to sign a consent form while in the same room with the doctor, meaning the treatment couldn’t be done over a video call or otherwise online — something not normally required with other medical treatment. Violators could be charged criminally and medical providers could lose their licenses.

Hinkle wrote that Florida had long allowed treatment for gender dysphoria, “but then the political winds changed.” The judge was appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton, a Democratic, in 1996.

For 99% of people, Hinkle wrote, their biological sex and gender identity are the same — but for a few, they differ. He noted that the state admitted that during the trial, though some won’t believe it and think transgender people are making a choice like “whether to read Shakespeare or Grisham.”

“Many people with this view tend to disapprove of all things transgender and so oppose medical care that supports [it],” Hinkle said.

He said while the state had conceded it couldn’t constitutionally block people from identifying as transgender and presenting themselves as they wish, comments from several legislators had made clear that this was their goal.

At least 25 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Most of those states are being sued over the laws.

The only other law to date to be struck down as unconstitutional is the ban in Arkansas, which the state has appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Advocates for transgender people are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Judges’ orders have temporarily blocked enforcement of a similar ban in Montana and aspects of a ban in Georgia.

Spencer writes for the Associated Press.