Florida Surgeon General Warns Against Child Transgender Procedures

Florida Surgeon Gen. Dr. Joseph Ladapo speaks during an event in a file photograph. Chris O'Meara/AP Photo

Florida’s surgeon general on Wednesday recommended against youth transgender procedures and surgeries while criticizing the Biden administration’s backing of those treatments for children.

“The federal government’s medical establishment releasing guidance failing at the most basic level of academic rigor shows that this was never about health care,” Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said in a statement. “It was about injecting political ideology into the health of our children.”

According to his office, for children and adolescents who use so-called puberty-blocking drugs, hormone treatments, or surgical procedures, about 80 percent “will lose their desire to identify with the non-birth sex” while he also noted that during puberty, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain continues to develop until approximately 25 years of age.

There are also “potentially irreversible consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis,” Ladapo wrote.

State guidelines include discouraging attempts to transition into a non-birth sex—including pronoun, name, and clothing changes, according to his office. The aforementioned puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgeries are also discouraged.

Florida’s guidelines came in response to the federal Department of Health and Human Services issuing a report that said so-called gender transitions provide physical and mental benefits for youth and children suffering from conditions such as gender dysphoria.

His office further noted that Sweden, the United Kingdom, Finland, and France are currently evaluating, reviewing, or stopping “the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents.”

It comes as a growing number of states have passed or are trying to pass laws that bar gender transition surgeries or drugs for minors.

Earlier this month, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed several measures into law that ban puberty-blocking drugs or hormones for individuals under the age of 18. The law also bars some teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation issues in class.

Alabama is now the only U.S. state to have banned such treatments for minors. Other states have sought to pass similar bills.

After the bill’s passage, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this month at a press briefing that Alabama’s new laws are an “extreme government overreach” and “will only serve to harm kids.” She didn’t elaborate.

A recently introduced Tennessee bill would restrict children’s access to hormone treatments, puberty blocker drugs, and other medical procedures.

“We have age restrictions on our youth for a number of different reasons that are there to protect them,” Tennessee state Rep. John Ragan, a Republican, told The Epoch Times last month. “These protections are multifaceted and across the board.”