We, a coalition of national and community-based organizations, grassroots groups, public officials, faith-based leaders and faith communities, and healthcare professionals who work in Florida, strongly condemn the Florida Board of Medicine’s recent decision to begin the rule-making process to create Florida-specific “standards of care” for gender-affirming healthcare for transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse youth. Despite the Board of Medicine’s claims to be an apolitical body acting on behalf of all Florida residents, the board meeting on August 5th, 2022, revealed an explicitly political agenda. Governor Ron Desantis’ hand-picked appointees on the Board of Medicine initiated these proceedings as one of several policy attacks on LGBTQ+ people in Florida.
We condemn the actions of Governor Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Ladapo, the Florida Board of Medicine, and the Florida Department of Health, for their intentional misrepresentation of scientific research, their deliberate exclusion of the vast body of scientific research that demonstrates the benefits of gender-affirming healthcare, and their assertion of the explicitly transphobic, scientifically debunked, so-called “social contagion theory.” We also condemn the Florida Board of Medicine’s decision to call on the overtly transphobic, biased, and discredited Dr. Quentin Van Meter. Van Meter’s “American College of Pediatricians” organization is an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group, not a medical authority.