Florida, fresh off a high-profile battle to ban what critics call gay and transgender grooming of young children in public schools, may be ready for the next legal fight: barring sex reassignment surgeries on teenagers by doctors, including one who boasts on TikTok that it is “easier than wisdom teeth removal.”
One state House member said he is interested in looking at a ban on transgender medical procedures for minors after a Washington Examiner investigation showed a Miami plastic surgeon promoting mastectomies and other gender surgeries to minors on TikTok.
“I was not aware of it. That’s pretty eye-opening, and it’s horrible,” said Republican state Rep. Randy Fine. “I think we should take a look at it.”
Eleven states are lining up to push bills outlawing transgender medical treatments for minors after Arkansas became the first last year.
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“This is medical grooming, targeting children to get life-altering surgeries that they can never undo,” Fine said. “The whole idea of childhood is you make mistakes, learn from them, and set your life on the right path.”
Fine is a vocal supporter of a Florida bill outlawing discussions of gender in some classrooms, referred to by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It passed the Legislature on March 8.
The Washington Examiner has published a series on transgenderism in children. It includes a look at plastic surgeon Sidhbh Gallagher, who said in one TikTok post that getting a mastectomy is “easier than wisdom teeth removal” for most people. Another post said surgical regret is “very rare,” with Gallagher offering to waive standard approvals by mental health professionals.
The doctor, who has 191,000 followers, frequently posts that she is “yeeting the teets” in a lighthearted reference to mastectomies. Gallagher could not be reached for comment.
The Florida Legislature is out of session until March 7, 2023, at which point Fine said he wants to look at joining other states, most notably Texas, in banning transgender procedures on children.
A Feb. 21 opinion by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said sex reassignment procedures, including prescribing puberty blockers, is child abuse and illegal under state law. This applies to both medical providers and parents who allow it and created a firestorm of negative publicity, with liberal activists vowing to fight it.
The Biden administration weighed in with a statement calling the opinion a “cynical and dangerous campaign targeting transgender children and their parents. … These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.”
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As a result of the opinion, several high-profile medical centers announced that they would no longer offer transgender care to children. Paxton’s office said nine investigations are currently underway into entities and/or people who are not complying.
Transgender activist 2.jpg“It’s pretty awful. I do think [transgender medical treatment] is child abuse,” Paxton told the Washington Examiner. “We know that children’s brains aren’t fully developed until their mid-to-late 20s. To saddle them with a decision that they didn’t make is horrifically bad, and many of these children have tremendous regret that this happened.”
Two such women profiled by the Washington Examiner are devastated over mastectomies performed when they were minors at a time when they thought they wanted to be male. One woman had a full hysterectomy, and both now live with pain and potentially lifelong medical problems.
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Meanwhile, the fallout continues in Texas. The state has sued the Biden administration for issuing federal guidance that says Paxton’s opinion is erroneous, while an appellate court has ruled that Texas cannot continue with its investigation into violators of the transgender law.
Currently, only Texas and Arkansas have laws restricting transgender health care, while 11 other states — Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee — have bills seeking to do this, according to a UCLA School of Law study. Most recently, a bill in Idaho failed to pass the GOP-led Senate because it included restrictions on parents who crossed state lines for treatment.
The study said the bills would affect 58,200 trans youth. Six states had bills that failed to pass: Indiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
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Six states would make it a felony for health professionals to provide care, and 11 states would allow discipline by licensing boards.
