Republican attorneys general from 18 states filed an amicus brief in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit supporting Florida’s decision not to use taxpayer funds to pay for sex-mutilating transgender surgeries and drugs.
Florida prohibited Medicaid from covering transgender procedures — from puberty blockers to surgical procedures — per rules added by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration in 2022. The rule was met with a lawsuit filed by two transgender adults and others, and was struck down this summer by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, a President Bill Clinton appointee.
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Hinkle’s decision stated that the rule violated the federal Medicaid statute of the Equal Production Clause and the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination. He also claimed that “gender identity is real,” and deferred to radical interest groups such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which promotes “gender-affirming” procedures for sex-confused minors.
Florida appealed the decision to the Eleventh Circuit after the summer ruling, and has now received the support of 18 Republican attorneys general who say Hinkle incorrectly ruled and “forced the state to use taxpayer funds” to cover transgender procedures.
“Healthcare authorities in the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, and elsewhere have all recently recognized that gender-transition procedures are experimental, if not pre-experimental,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement October 13.
“Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration came to the same conclusion,” Marshall continued:
Yet the district court rejected that growing consensus and deferred instead to radical interest groups like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which advocates for gender transitioning procedures for gender dysphoric youth and ‘medically necessary’ castration for men self-identifying as eunuchs. Thankfully, the Constitution does not put WPATH in charge of the health and welfare of Florida’s citizens.”
The coalition’s amicus brief argues that pro-transgender medical interest groups, such as WPATH and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have not acted responsibly when it comes to their guidelines and promotion of sex change drugs and procedures. They further argue that until these interest groups act responsibly, Florida has a substantial interest in protecting its own citizens from footing the bill for sex-change drugs and procedures.
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Florida’s rule prohibiting Medicaid funding from being used for sex change surgeries and drugs occurred two months after a Florida Medicaid report requested by the Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) found that s0-called treatments for those with gender dysphoria — from sex reassignment surgery to hormone therapy — are not “safe or effective” but fundamentally “experimental and investigational,” as Breitbart News reported:
According to the report, Medicaid has a rule which mandates that sex reassignment treatments, as a condition of coverage, must be “consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards (GAPMS) and not experimental or investigational.” Overall, the document concludes that existing studies do not provide enough solid research to substantiate these treatments, despite endorsements from large clinical organizations.
The report also addressed support for “gender-affirming” treatments from organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), contending that “none of those organizations relies on high quality evidence.”
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“Their eminence in the medical community alone does not validate views in the absence of quality, supporting, evidence,” the report read.
“To the contrary, the evidence shows that the above treatments pose irreversible consequences, exacerbate or fail to alleviate existing mental conditions, and cause infertility or sterility. Given the current state of the evidence, the above treatments do not conform to GAPMS and are experimental and investigational,” it concluded.
The amicus brief was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The case is Dekker v. Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, No. 23-12155 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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