Learn more about the rules being promulgated by the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine to restrict access to treatment for gender dysphoria for minors in the state of Florida. Learn what you can do to get involved today!

LGBTQ+ and health advocacy groups Southern Legal Counsel, Lambda Legal, Florida Health Justice Project, and National Health Law Program, together with international law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, filed a federal lawsuit today challenging Florida’s anti-transgender health care rule denying coverage for transgender Medicaid beneficiaries’ medically necessary gender-affirming medical care. The lawsuit, Dekker, et al., v. Marstiller, et al., Case No. 4:22-cv-00325-RH-MAF (Hinkle, J.), was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida against the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), on behalf of four plaintiffs.

“Ignoring thousands of public comments and expert testimony, Florida’s AHCA has finalized a rule that will deny Medicaid coverage for all medically necessary gender-affirming care for both youth and adults. This discriminatory and medically unsound rule will take effect on August 21, 2022, putting transgender people in jeopardy of losing access to critical gender-affirming health care services.

“Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Health Justice Project, Lambda Legal, and National Health Law Program urge the Florida Board of Medicine to stop playing politics with people’s health care and not to adopt guidelines for a standard of care to treat gender dysphoria that are contrary to the evidence-based and overwhelming consensus that gender-affirming medical care for the treatment of gender dysphoria is safe, effective, and medically necessary.”