Judge says Florida can't enforce trans care restrictions while appealing his ruling

A federal judge has refused to stay his decision striking down Florida’s restrictions on gender-affirming care while the state appeals.

Putting the decision on hold “will cause needless suffering and will increase anxiety, depression, and the risk of suicide” for transgender Floridians, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote in his ruling, issued Thursday. “This is the factor that most clearly supports denial of a stay,” he continued.

There is also no compelling state interest for staying the decision, he added. “The state allowed and even paid for gender-affirming care for many years before enacting the statute and rules at issue in a wave of anti-transgender bias,” and it has safeguards in place to assure the care is provided according to the best-practice standards, Hinkle wrote. “Leaving in place the status quo as it existed for years prior to adoption of the challenged statute and rules will cause no concrete harm to the state or anyone else,” he noted.

“The evidence that animus motivated at least some legislators is overwhelming, indeed undisputed,” Hinkle went on, saying that “a legislator loudly called transgender individuals ‘demons’ and ‘imps,’ another called them ‘evil,’ and a sponsor said ‘good riddance’ to any transgender individual who left the state.”

“With legislators having loudly and proudly proclaimed their bias,” Judge Hinkle concluded, “the defendants ought not be allowed to hide from it now.”

In a June 11 ruling, he had permanently blocked enforcement of the restrictions. His ruling in the case of Doe v. Ladapo found that Florida Senate Bill 254 and the related Boards of Medicine rules were motivated by disapproval of transgender people and violate the equal protection rights of transgender individuals and parents of transgender minors in Florida. Florida was the first state to pass a law restricting access to health care for transgender adults.

The ban on this care for minors was first enacted in March 2023 through the adoption of rules by the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine, at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, and the Florida Department of Health. SB 254, which was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and took effect in May 2023, wrote the ban into state law, subject to a narrow continued-use exception for minors who had started treatment before the ban. SB 254 also created felony criminal and civil penalties for Florida medical providers.

It further added severe restrictions that effectively blocked access to essential medical care for trans adults and minors who would be eligible for the continued-use exception, including requiring that care be provided exclusively by physicians, barring telehealth, and requiring patients to complete unique, onerous, and misleading consent forms.

The suit against the law and rules was brought by four trans adults and seven parents of trans minors. They are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Southern Legal Counsel, and Lowenstein Sandler LLP.

“Today’s ruling forcefully reiterates that health care access must be based on sound principles of medicine, not politics or bias,” Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD, said in a press release. “As the court found, the state of Florida has not been able to provide a single instance of a Florida transgender adolescent or adult receiving inappropriate treatment or experiencing regret over care they have received in the state. We are relieved that transgender people and their families in Florida will continue to be able to make the health care decisions that are right for them.”

“We are pleased the court will continue to enforce this important decision, which correctly found that Florida’s ban on lifesaving medical care for transgender youth and adults was based on bias, not facts,” added Shannon Minter, legal director at NCLR. “Like other similar laws around the country, Florida’s ban was passed impulsively, without any attempt to genuinely understand this area of health care or the best interests of transgender youth and their families. The State of Florida continues to ignore the facts and make unsupported and, in some cases, outlandish claims. We are grateful to Judge Hinkle for calling these state officials to task for their misrepresentations.”

There has so far been no public response to the ruling by DeSantis, Ladapo, or other Florida officials. DeSantis's office did refer the Florida Phoenixto statements he made regarding the June decision. “If you’re not willing to defend Florida’s duly enacted statutes against liberal jurisprudence, then you’re basically saying the people of Florida shouldn’t govern themselves and that we should just turn over our destiny to some trial judge somewhere. That I refuse to do,” DeSantis said in a news conference at the time.