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https://wnyt.com/politics .. re-for-minors/
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by seven parents, which was later amended to seek an injunction against SB-254, a recently-passed Florida law that made it illegal for doctors to provide gender-affirming healthcare to minors. The preliminary injunction concerns GnRH agonists, known as “puberty blockers,” and cross-s3x hormones, known as “hormone replacement therapy” (HRT).
In Tuesday’s ruling, Hinkle said doctors for the three children told the court they were in urgent need of puberty blockers. Parents of two of the plaintiffs testified that their children’s peers do not know they are tr@nsgender. One of the plaintiffs listed in the suit is an 8-year-old boy (identified as Gavin Goe) who had his appointment at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital gender clinic in St. Petersburg abruptly cancelled after the law passed.
“Gender identity is real,” Hinkle reiterated multiple times in his ruling. He accused the defense of enforcing the legislation for political purposes and eschewing medical consensus, saying in part, “the statute and the rules were an exercise in politics, not good medicine.”
“In this litigation, the medical defendants have explicitly acknowledged that this view is wrong and that pushing individuals away from their tr@nsgender identity is not a legitimate state interest,” Hinkle wrote in the 44-page order.
Hinkle outlined the standards of care for gender dysphoria (which includes puberty blockers and HRT) as written in the DSM-5, which have been formally recognized by dozens of medical organizations, 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.
The defendants have argued that such medications are unsafe because they lack FDA approval for treating gender dysphoria. Plaintiffs say the drugs are routinely used to treat patients with precocious puberty (children who begin puberty prematurely) as well as endometriosis and prostate cancer, in some cases.
“The defendants note that 98% or more of adolescents treated with GnRH agonists progress to cross-s3x hormones,” Hinkle wrote. “That is hardly an indictment of the treatment; it is instead consistent with the view that in 98% or more of the cases, the patient’s gender identity did not align with natal s3x, this was accurately determined, and the patient was appropriately treated first with GnRH agonists and later with cross-s3x hormones.”