ORLANDO, Fla. — Republican bills aimed at preventing transgender children from transitioning have led to a firestorm of criticism from Democrats and the LQBTQ community. One proposal would allow the state to take a child away from a parent even “at risk” of doing so.
But in this year’s legislative session, the issue is just one part of a larger GOP focus on defining sex and gender in general.
“At its core, it is a reductive worldview that sees people as nothing more than their reproductive organs,” said Brandon Wolf, spokesman for Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy group. “And I’ve never seen a group of people more obsessed with what genitals other people have than the right wing.”
One bill by state Rep. Adam Anderson, a Palm Harbor Republican, HB 1223, has already been dubbed by opponents as “Don’t Say They” because it would prohibit public school students from using pronouns that don’t correspond to their birth gender.
It goes on to define sex as the “binary division of individuals based on reproductive function.” It also states that the Constitution and laws of Florida say a person’s gender is an “immutable biological trait” and that it is “false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such a person’s sex.”
SB 1320 by state Sen. Clay Yarborough, a Jacksonville Republican, defines sex as “the classification of a human person as being either male or female based on the organization of the body of such person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.”
His bill would prohibit any school employee from asking anyone about their preferred pronouns. It also prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in private preschools and public grade schools until the ninth grade.
The current law bans such instruction in schools up to the third grade and limits it to “age-appropriate” students in higher grades.
A ban on drag shows
State Rep. Randy Fine, a Palm Bay Republican, filed HB 1423, which would continue the state’s targeting of drag shows by threatening to “fine, suspend, or revoke the license” of any business that admits a child to an “adult live performance.”
The first violation of the proposed law would be a $5,000 fine.
Currently, the state can threaten venues with losing their liquor licenses. The Plaza Live in Orlando is being investigated by the state because children were allegedly allowed into a drag show performance in December.
Fine also is the author of HB 1421, which would ban any puberty-blocking hormones and gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
The state medical board has already voted to prevent minors from receiving transgender treatment, even in clinical trials. But Fine’s bill goes further, enshrining the ban in state law and threatening doctors with losing their licenses if they provide such treatment.
The American Medical Association has described gender assignment care, which can include puberty-blocking drugs and hormone treatments, as “medically necessary” and “evidence-based.” It has urged states not to ban the practice because of a significantly heightened risk of suicide from “societal stigma and discrimination.”
Transgender children are not offered puberty blockers or hormone treatments until they reach puberty, according to The Washington Post, and the care is reversible. Gender surgeries for minors are rare and are usually not recommended before the age of 18.
There is an acknowledgment in Fine’s transgender bill that science is complicated when it comes to sex and gender. Despite the specific language that the gender on someone’s birth certificate can’t be changed, the bill would allow treatment by a “good faith” physician on minors with “ambiguous” sexual characteristics or those without “normal sex chromosome structure.”
That appears to allow intersex surgeries, which alter genitals to make them appear more normal. They have been deemed medically unnecessary and intrusive, with some hospitals refusing to perform them on children too young to consent.
‘Carte blanche to kidnap’
A companion bill to Fine’s, SB 254, filed by Yarborough, would make it a third-degree felony to provide such treatments to minors.
It also contains a provision granting the state emergency jurisdiction over a child present in the state, even if he or she lives in another state, if someone brought the child to Florida to stop transgender care or to keep the child from being “at risk” of such care.
Ashley Mayfaire, director of the South Florida non-profit group TransSOCIAL, said the bill’s language doesn’t specify who would have the right to take control of a child for that purpose.
“It could be grandparents or parents that don’t have custody rights [given] carte blanche to kidnap,” she said. “... It’s really a horrible way to frame transition care as a form of child abuse.”
Eradicating transgenderism
The debate over trans rights comes as rhetoric has been amplified in conservative spaces.
On stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, commentator Michael Knowles said “there can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. ... Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
The sentiment was echoed by Knowles’ fellow Daily Wire colleague Matt Walsh, who had already said earlier this year he’d “rather be dead” than have one of his children be transgender.
Fine, who said last year that opponents of his proposed bill were a “radical grooming minority that tried to sexualize our children,” praised his proposal on social media.
“The butchering of children will be illegal in Florida, Florida citizens will not be obligated to pay for the sexual mutilation of adults, and those tricked into this evil will have 30 years to sue those who misled them,” Fine wrote on Twitter last week.
Fine declined to comment for this story.
Mayfaire said the wave of legislation in Florida and other GOP-led states will lead, if it hasn’t already, to families and individuals leaving for more-welcoming states. But not everyone has the means to just go.
“There’s definitely socioeconomic barriers,” she said. “But it’s very similar to what they’re doing with the abortion bans. It’s removing options for folks so they have to face tremendous barriers to get the care that they need medically. They’re creating ... refugees in their own states.”
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