Florida can enforce its law banning gender reassignment care for minors and imposing restrictions on adults pending an appeal from a federal court declaring the ban unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit sided with Florida and allowed the state’s ban on hormone replacement therapy for minors and restrictions on the types of providers who can administer hormones to adults to remain in place.
The court also ordered an expedited procedure in the appeal proceedings.
The order overturns a July ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee that reiterated his blocking of the ban while the case was heard on appeal. Parents of transgender children and trans adults took the case to court in 2023 after the Florida Legislature passed the bill, SB 254.
In an unsigned opinion, the appeals court ruled 2-1 that the defendants, including Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and the Florida Board of Medicine, are likely to succeed on appeal.
“The district court likely misapplied the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith when it concluded that the prohibition and regulation provisions and the implementing regulations were based on abhorrent discrimination against transgender minors and adults,” concluded the majority opinion, consisting of Justices Britt Grant and Robert Luck. Both justices were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Judge Charles Wilson disagreed, arguing against government interference in private medical decisions.
“Overall, the evidence at hand shows that plaintiffs and class members would suffer if the stay were granted – denying access to gender-affirming care would cause unnecessary suffering,” Wilson wrote.
“In contrast, refusing to defer would support a decision that is in the public interest. This is a medical matter where patients are best placed to make decisions together with healthcare professionals and have access to full, unbiased information when needed.”
The decision is a blow to clinics in the state that resumed hormone replacement therapy after Hinkle’s strike against SB 254, such as 26Health in Orlando, and to their patients.
Weigh up the damage
However, the appeals court concluded that the harm that would be caused to Florida by its failure to implement the legislature’s will to “avoid irreversible health risks to its children” was greater than the harm that would be caused to Florida’s transgender citizens.
“As for the risk to others, despite current law, doctors are still allowed to prescribe and administer puberty blockers and hormones to adults. And minors who are already receiving them are still allowed to do so,” Grant and Luck wrote.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), one of the human rights organizations arguing the case in court, said the order was disappointing and called SB 254 a “textbook example of a law based on bias.”
“I think that’s very wrong. It’s a divided panel, two to one. I think the majority of the two judges just ignored the very thorough, very careful findings of fact by the district court,” Minter said in a telephone interview with Florida Phoenix.
The tone of the appeals court’s decision is markedly different from Hinkle’s rebuke of the 2023 law. In June, Hinkle ruled that SB 254 targeted transgender people and compared the discrimination transgender people face today to racism and misogyny.
During a press conference in June, Governor Ron DeSantis predicted that Hinkle’s decision would be overturned.
“This will be reversed, there’s no doubt about it,” DeSantis said at the time, referring to a ruling by the Eleventh Circuit in favor of an Alabama law banning genital surgery on minors. That ruling is not being challenged in the Florida lawsuit.
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