- Clinton-appointed judge overturns Florida’s Medicaid ban on transgender medical care.
- The judge accused authorities of enacting the ban “for political reasons.”
- This is the second time in a month that DeSantis has lost the battle over anti-trans medicine measures.
federal judge on wednesday knocked down Florida regulations barred government medical programs from paying for treatments such as anti-pubertal drugs and hormone therapy for transgender people.
Judge Robert Hinkle harshly criticized Florida officials in his opinion, saying the ban was “biased” from the outset to view transgender identities as “hoaxes,” “fake ideas,” or “pharmaceutical profiteering.” I wrote that it was issued through the process. industry or doctors. ”
He said ban supporters “should either put up with it or shut up. Do they accept or not accept that some people have an actual gender identity that is the opposite of the gender they were assigned at birth? Dog whistles should not be tolerated.” ‘ writes.
Representatives of the governor’s office and Florida’s health care agency, the Health Care Administration, did not immediately respond to an insider’s request for comment after hours.
Florida’s ban took effect in August 2022 and specifically applied to patients receiving health insurance through Medicaid. This is a jointly funded state and federal program that targets low-income individuals, large numbers of children, and eligible persons with disabilities.
The ban began to take shape in 2022 when the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis directed the state’s medical institutions to conduct an analysis of Medicaid patients who received transition-related care. About 12,000 transgender patients in Florida are enrolled in the program, according to Lambda Legal, one of the firms that represented transgender plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
This medical service is known in the field as ‘gender-affirmative medicine’ and includes pubertal inhibitors, heterosexual hormones and surgery. Florida’s medical agency concluded that these services are “experimental,” even though many medical associations have determined that these services are medically necessary. blocked Cover their payments with Medicaid.
In response, a medical provider and an LGBTQ+ rights group filed a lawsuit on behalf of four state patients (two adults and two 13-year-old children) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Without Medicaid coverage, patients had to find other ways to pay for their medical bills.
Because the case was still pending, the Republican-majority Florida legislature sent a bill to Mr. DeSantis, who signed it and adopted the regulation. Mr. Hinkle repealed the law as part of Wednesday’s order.
In a 54-page opinion, Hinkle wrote that health officials had decided to order the ban “for political reasons” because Florida’s Medicaid system had long “paid for medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria.” accused of enacting
“Like deciding whether to read Shakespeare or Grisham, cisgender people correctly adhere to their sex at birth, while transgender people incorrectly identify as male or female or reverse their gender identity. There are those who believe they are choosing,” he wrote. “Many people with this view tend to disapprove of anything transgender and tend to oppose medical care that supports a transgender existence.”
Hinkle, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, earlier this month faced the same trial that blocked part of a Florida law aimed at banning the administration of puberty inhibitors and sex hormones by transgender minors. is an official.
“The first thing to notice is the elephant in the room,” he wrote, using similar language to his earlier remarks. “Gender identity is real. The record reveals it.”
The state failed to show that people were receiving transition-related medical care without first receiving treatment and being evaluated by a multitude of health care providers, Hinkle wrote. Even so, he said the solution should be better regulation, not a blanket ban.
DeSantis is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and has made anti-trans policies a centerpiece of his policy.
During a book tour stay in Charleston, South Carolina, in Aprilhe defined affirming the identity of transgender people as “away from the truth,” dismissed medical groups that advocate transition-related medicine as “ideological,” and called transgender care. He called the supporters of “medical institution rogue elements”.
He signed several bills this year that have greatly disrupted the lives of transgender people in Florida. criminalize Examples of people using toilets in government facilities that do not match the sex assigned at birth.
“Florida politicians like Ron DeSantis are attacking the most vulnerable people to get political scores,” Omar Gonzalez Pagan, legal counsel and medical strategist at Lambda Legal, said in a statement Wednesday. I regret trying.”
“But today’s ruling makes discrimination wrong and recognizes the right of everyone in Florida, including transgender people, to have equal access to evidence-based, life-saving health care.” added Gonzalez Pagan.