NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 24: L.G.B.T. activists and their supporters rally in support of transgender people on the steps of New York City Hall, October 24, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A Florida law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender youth is likely unconstitutional, a federal judge found on Tuesday.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction protecting the continuing medical care of seven transgender children, whose parents sued state officials over bans imposed by the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine that became effective this past March.
Three of the children sought the injunction, through their parents.
The broader lawsuit, filed anonymously earlier this year, seeks a judicial declaration that the transgender medical care bans are unconstitutional, but Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle is limited to the suing parents and their children.
After convening a bench trial, Hinkle said that the evidence is in, and he wanted to dispense with medical misinformation.
“The elephant in the room should be noted at the outset,” Hinkle, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote in a 28-page opinion. “Gender identity is real. The record makes this clear. The medical defendants, speaking through their attorneys, have admitted it. At least one defense expert also has admitted it.”
The judge noted that this expert, Stephen B. Levine, was the only one called by the defense who treated transgender patients. Their ages range from 8 to 11 years old.
“He addressed the issues conscientiously, on the merits, rather than as a biased advocate,” the judge continued.
Other defense experts provided contrary and incendiary views. One opined that transgender people suffer from a “false belief,” “charade,” or “delusion,” and another said in a radio interview that gender-affirming care is a “lie” and a “huge evil” that he branded “diabolical.”
The judge called such ideas false — and out of step with the admissions of the single defense expert with relevant experience.
“Despite the defense admissions, there are those who believe that cisgender individuals properly adhere to their natal sex and that transgender individuals have inappropriately chosen a contrary gender identity, male or female, just as one might choose whether to read Shakespeare or Grisham,” Hinkle wrote. “Many people with this view tend to disapprove all things transgender and so oppose medical care that supports a person’s transgender existence. In this litigation, the medical defendants have explicitly acknowledged that this view is wrong and that pushing individuals away from their transgender identity is not a legitimate state interest.”
More than a dozen medical organizations supported the parents’ position, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association.
“At least as shown by this record, not a single reputable medical association has taken a contrary position,” Hinkle noted.
Hinkle lambasted the state’s argument that these medical organizations are biased.
“If ever a pot called a kettle black, it is here,” he quipped. “The statute and the rules were an exercise in politics, not good medicine.”
What’s actually at play, the judge suggested, was politics and bigotry.
“This is a politically fraught area,” he wrote. “There has long been, and still is, substantial bigotry directed at transgender individuals. Common experience confirms this, as does a Florida legislator’s remarkable reference to transgender witnesses at a committee hearing as ‘mutants’ and ‘demons.’”
The judge readily agreed with Florida’s argument in one respect: treatment for transgender youth is not without risk, of misdiagnosis or other harms.
“Risks attend many kinds of medical treatment, perhaps most,” the ruling notes. “Ordinarily it is the patient, in consultation with the doctor, who weighs the risks and benefits and chooses a course of treatment. What is remarkable about the challenged statute and rules is not that they address medical treatments with both risks and benefits but that they arrogate to the state the right to make the decision. And worse, the statute and rules make the same decision for everybody, without considering any patient’s individual circumstances. The statute and rules do this in contravention of widely accepted standards of care.”
Hinkle found that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their equal protection and parental rights claims.
Read the ruling in full here.
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