LGBTQ Families Speak Out Against "Transgender Youth Medical Care Ban"

TALLAHASSEE — Today, Equality Florida was joined by lawmakers, LGBTQ families, medical professionals and advocates to highlight the dangers of the “Transgender Medical Care Ban”. The press conference was held just hours before the Florida House Health Quality Subcommittee holds a workshop on HB 1365, which would jail doctors for up to 15 years for providing life-saving care for transgender children. (You can view the press conference here)

Equality Florida’s Director of Transgender Equality, Gina Duncan, provided the following statement during the press conference:

“Gathered here today is a broad coalition including Equality Florida’s partners at Pridelines Miami, Planned Parenthood Florida, Faith in Public Life, SAVE and many others to raise the alarm about the dangers of the Transgender Youth Medical Care Ban, dangerous legislation being heard today in the Florida House. We are here to stand together and demand the Florida Legislature stop the attacks on LGBTQ people.

HB 1365, the Transgender Youth Medical Care Ban, is a dangerous and mean spirited bill that would jail doctors for up to 15 years for providing life-saving care for transgender children.

Filed in the eleventh hour, HB 1365 is the most egregious of a slate of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this session. This deliberate targeting of transgender people is all the more shameful given Florida’s recent history of deadly violence against the transgender community. In less than two years, seven Black transgender women have been brutally murdered in our state. Florida leads the country in the instances of deadly violence against transgender women of color, even as attacks on transgender Americans fuel conservative politics at the national level. Instead of denouncing anti-trans hatred leadership in the Florida House has instead decided to hear a bill that endangers transgender children - our states most vulnerable.

We are here to say with our collective voices that this is the wrong direction, Florida. Reject these attacks and instead embrace the popular, bipartisan, and widely supported protections offered in the Florida Competitive Workforce Act. We should be working together to end violence and discrimination in our state.

Today’s workshop on HB 1365 comes at a time when the voices of business and the public could not be more clear. There is no appetite for discrimination. In fact, national headlines are reporting businesses like Fifth Third Bank, Wells Fargo, and Wyndham Destinations have withdrawn support of Florida’s private school voucher program after discovering some of the program’s beneficiaries have anti-LGBTQ policies in place which hurt our LGBTQ youth. As we speak the public and voices of business are demanding we protect our state’s children, and yet still the Florida House mounts this attack. This is the wrong direction.”

Speakers at the press conference (listed in the order they spoke):

• Gina Duncan, Equality Florida's Director of Transgender Equality
• Jeanette Jennings, citizen advocate and parent of transgender child
• Asher, transgender student, and his mom Sally Hogshead
• Dr. Janet Silverstein, UF Pediatric Endocrinologist, Alachua Youth Gender Project
• State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith