Organizations Suing to Stop Florida’s Transgender Health Ban Add Challenge to Restrictions on Adult Care and Request for Class-wide Relief

by Aryn Fields • July 22, 2023

Organizations challenging Florida’s transgender healthcare ban on behalf of seven families with transgender children filed an amended complaint today expanding the case to address state law SB 254’s harmful restrictions on access to care for adults and seeking class-wide relief for all transgender minors and adults who require medical care restricted by SB 254.

The complaint filed today adds four individual adult plaintiffs to the lawsuit, Doe v. Ladapo: Olivia Noel, Kai Pope, Lucien Hamel, and Rebecca Cruz Evia. These plaintiffs are all facing dangerous disruptions in their ongoing medical care due to the Florida law.

In addition to banning established medical care for transgender adolescents and creating criminal and civil penalties for those providing such care, SB 254 enacted severe restrictions on access to care for adults. Advanced Practice Registered Nurse – Nurse Practitioners are critical providers of transgender healthcare in Florida barred by SB 254 from continuing to treat patients. SB 254 also bars telehealth access and requires in-person consultation for all care, a requirement that is impossible to meet for Florida residents who don’t live near a providing physician. The law and related Boards of Medicine rules also created medically unnecessary and harmful barriers to care and require physicians to convey false information to their patients.

These restrictions serve no medical purpose and intentionally prevent transgender people from receiving the care they need.

The plaintiffs are represented by Southern Legal Counsel, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign, which issued the following statement:

SB 254’s restrictions on well-established medical care cause profound harm, serve no legitimate purpose, and reflect gross legislative overreach. SB 254 takes away Floridian’s ability to make important decisions about their own lives and hands it over to the government instead. That should alarm us all.

On June 6, the federal district court issued a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of Florida’s ban on healthcare for transgender minors and saying the ban is unconstitutional. That order allows Florida parents to access necessary medical care for their transgender children while the legal challenge to the ban continues.

The complaint filed today seeks a permanent block on all provisions in SB 254 and related Boards of Medicine Rules restricting access to established transgender medical care for adolescents and adults.

Read the third amended complaint and request for class-wide relief

Motion to file third amended complaint and join new plaintiffs

Read the preliminary injunction order

More information on the safe, effective, and well-established guidelines on medical care for transgender youth.