Florida is suing prominent medical organizations, saying they have misled the public about the safety and effectiveness of using hormones and surgery to treat children with gender dysphoria.
The 75-page lawsuit, filed on Dec. 9 in Florida’s 19th Circuit Court in St. Lucie County, accused the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Endocrine Society of supporting “gender affirming care.” The suit says there is “no credible evidence” that medical procedures help gender dysphoric children.
None of the organizations immediately responded to a request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that the groups violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. It also cites the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, stating that the groups conspired to deceive the public for financial gain.
The medical organizations knew the science behind their protocols was based on “weak evidence” and cited each other’s guidelines as support for their own, the lawsuit says.
‘Unethical and Dangerous’
“In fact, some parents were told that if they didn’t put their kids through permanent, life-altering, sick procedures like double mastectomies and castration, their child would commit suicide. Not only is that unethical and dangerous medicine, but it is against the law,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a video announcing the lawsuit.
“Children were irrevocably harmed because truth was replaced with political activism.”
Florida’s lawsuit noted that national health agencies in the United States and Europe have endorsed a holistic psychosocial approach designed to alleviate pediatric gender dysphoria and other mental distress through family therapy and counseling.
The lawsuit argues there is no clear evidence that puberty-blocking hormones are fully reversible or that attempting to change the child’s gender alleviates thoughts of suicide.
It cites reviews of pediatric gender dysphoria treatments by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Great Britain’s National Health Service, led by Dr. Hilary Cass, and reviews in Finland and Sweden.
The HHS report is the most recent, following similar recommendations reached by the European reviews recommending therapy instead of medical intervention for treating pediatric gender dysphoria.
The Cass report found there was “no good evidence” for positive long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.
The Finnish report called gender reassignment of minors an “experimental practice,” while the Swedish one concluded “the risks of puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments,” according to the lawsuit.
Florida’s lawsuit further argues that youth identifying as transgender was rare a decade ago. It says the rate has “skyrocketed in recent years,” suggesting that the increase was a social contagion spurred by the rise in social media and mental health issues in youths.
The lawsuit’s impact could be far-reaching, according to C. Alan Hopewell, a longtime neuropsychologist in Fort Worth, Texas, and a critic of transgender-related procedures.
“It could be the end of the ‘gender affirming care,’” Hopewell told The Epoch Times. “I would think it would be a domino effect.”
A successful lawsuit would force the standards of care away from medical intervention, he said.
Some states, such as Florida and Texas, have passed laws against hormones and surgeries for minors, while others continue to offer such treatments.
Hopewell, who said he saw gender-confused patients as far back as the 1970s, said attempting to medically transition people has become a lucrative cottage industry in the medical field. Most U.S. professional organizations support the affirmation model, he said.
Researchers and professors conducting transgender studies have attracted grants “worth millions of dollars,” often leading to professional recognition, promotions, and tenure, he said.
Hopewell told The Epoch Times in several interviews that people with gender dysphoria may get caught up in online mass hysteria and become vulnerable to social media influences that affirm their beliefs.
He compared the surge in gender dysphoria—discussed obsessively in some online communities—to other mass hysteria events like the Salem witch trials, and cited a more modern example: The mass hysteria over multiple personality disorder in the 1980s after TV movies such as “Sybil,” about a woman with 16 different personalities, became popular.
Parent Welcomes Lawsuit
Christy Davidson’s experiences as a parent dealing with the transgender industry are echoed in Florida’s lawsuit.
Davidson lives in the “middle of nowhere” in the isolated mountains of Arizona with her husband and three boys.
So when her son, now 16, informed Davidson and her husband that he was transgender two years ago, she was dumbfounded.
“We never heard of such a thing,” she told The Epoch Times. “But we took him to the doctor because something’s wrong, right?”
What followed was even more unexpected: A mental health counselor affirmed the belief that her son, who is also on the autism spectrum, was a girl.
“To hear a lady telling us, calling my son Violet, and saying, if you don’t do what she says, she’s going to commit suicide,” Davidson said.
The counselor told the parents their son needed hormones right away, which the parents rejected.
Her son continued to press his case with her, using WPATH information online as justification for hormone intervention, she said.
As a result, the family has struggled to get the boy help for his gender dysphoria. They are paying out of pocket for a therapist from Switzerland. All local therapists insist her son is a girl and tell the parents to go along with that belief, according to Davidson.
“I am hopeful,” Davidson said of the lawsuit.
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