This past Tuesday, the Florida State Senate pushed through a bill that will ban all minors from undergoing “gender reassignment” surgery, puberty blockers, or hormone therapy.
The bill, which made it through with a vote of 27-12, must now make it through the Florida House and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis in order to cement itself as law. A similar law proposed by GOP State Rep. Randy Fine is also headed for a vote in the state House.
“We have a responsibility to all of the children of Florida not to allow this to happen in our state,” explained the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Clay Yarborough (R-Jacksonville), to the Senate. “A decision of this magnitude absolutely cannot be made by a child in mental distress. This bill will allow children to be children.”
“This bill is even more important to the children that are led down the path and told that the only option for curing mental health issues is gender affirming treatments and surgeries, which causes permanent disfigurement, and may eliminate the ability to have children by subjecting their bodies to devastating long term damage,” he went on.
Yarborough went on to note that the bill amends Florida’s child custody laws so as to “protect the rights of parents” and “ensure a pathway for a parent to petition the court if the other parent attempts to subject their child to a sex reassignment prescription or procedure.”
This past Monday, a bill passed through the Florida State Senate seeking to ban all abortions after six weeks, which holds the support of DeSantis. Exceptions to this law would be made if the life of the mother is in danger or a pregnancy was caused by rape or incest out until 15 weeks of pregnancy, although the woman would have to offer up documentation detailing the situation, like a medical record, a police report, or a restraining order.
Paul Renner, the House Speaker, also noted in late March that DeSantis’ new policy proposals would be set up successfully, stating, “We have a lot of the governor’s priorities in a really good spot. We’ll pass them … We’re moving quickly … Some of what the governor has proposed is monumental and good, and we support it 100%.”
DeSantis stated about the Florida legislature, “They are mindful that it’s probably better not to have kind of an eight-car pileup the last week of session where the whole agenda gets through in the last 72 hours. I think you’re going to see more earlier.”
