The state of Florida is accusing multiple prominent medical organizations of racketeering in state court for their consensus, fact-based guidance about gender-affirming health care.
Running for reelection appears to have incentivized Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier to pursue as many right-wing causes as possible to make it through his party’s primary. That and the Republican Party’s bizarre focus on trans people and their genitalia is context for the conspiracy-filled announcement Uthmeier made Tuesday of a lawsuit that accuses the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society.
In his announcement, Uthmeier accused the groups of “mutilating kids and misleading families,” and claimed the groups’ guidance misled families into having children undergo “castrations” and “double mastectomies.” The suit alleges that the organizations violated Florida’s racketeering laws by relying on another’s research to reach similar determinations (which virtually every credible medical organization in the U.S. has: that gender-affirming care is a credible, safe and often essential field of medicine).
The lawsuit cites as evidence for its claim that gender-affirming care is dangerous the widely debunked study out of the United Kingdom known as the Cass Review.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health is “committed to advancing cautious, evidence-informed guidelines for care to help improve the lives of transgender people globally so they may live full and authentic lives,” the organization said in a statement, going on to say it strongly supports “the value of scientific and academic research as well as discussion among peers” to improve trans and gender-diverse people’s lives and that people should be free to receive medical care free of “political interference and retaliation.”
The lawsuit comes as Florida’s right-wing government this week has stepped up its legal campaign against its political foes. On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, as a “foreign terrorist organization,” a characterization the group has vehemently denied and intends to fight in court.
Florida’s lawsuit over gender-affirming care also fits within the broader trend of the Republican Party’s discrimination and persecution of transgender people. For example, the Trump administration issued new rules earlier this year preventing trans people from listing the gender they identify with on their passports, and the Justice Department recently took steps to eliminate sexual abuse protections for trans and other LGBTQ+ people in prison, reversing several Biden administration policies.
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