‘As the world goes mad, Florida represents a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy.” This statement by Governor Ron DeSantis could easily have been uttered in 2020 during the height of the coronavirus response. But in fact, DeSantis said this on Wednesday, while signing the “Let Kids Be Kids” package, a slew of bills designed to curtail LGBT overreach in the Sunshine State.
There is no shortage of examples to illustrate the madness to which DeSantis is referring. Gender clinicians openly promote their cavalier attitude to “top surgery” (i.e., breast amputation), advertising the procedure to young prospective patients on TikTok. Drag queens strip and pole-dance in front of audiences made up of children, much to the delight of grown men and women. Pornographic materials too obscene to detail here are distributed in school libraries.
Last week, at the 2023 GLAAD Media Awards, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking of medicalized gender transition, said that American children “belong to all of us.” This view is reflected in the Democratic proclivity for undermining parental rights.
Progressive activists push for state laws — even constitutional amendments — guaranteeing minors’ access to sterilizing cross-sex hormones, the removal of healthy body parts, and abortion. California governor Gavin Newsom has moved to facilitate child gender-transition tourism from other states. And all while an increasing number of youths and young adults (detransitioners) share heartbreaking testimonies of how quickly and easily their bodies were maimed by clinicians before they had a chance to accept themselves.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, there are now 19 states and counting where so-called “gender affirming” clinical malpractice is outlawed. The same day as DeSantis’s bill-signing, the Texas legislature voted to outlaw medicalized transitions for minors. The law will now head to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk for signature.
Notwithstanding accusations to the contrary, this conservative fight is defensive in nature. The Texas law, Senate Bill 14, prohibits doctors from surgically removing healthy body parts or prescribing sterilizing drugs in an attempt to alter a child’s sex characteristics. The Florida health bill bans these drugs and procedures outright, requires “adult patients who are receiving these medications to be informed about the dangers and irreversible nature of these procedures and to give written informed consent,” and makes it easier for patients to sue doctors for damages. These bills wisely refrain from taking the more drastic steps some conservatives have mentioned, such as blocking adults from altering their sexual characteristics.
Under Florida’s bill package, students will not be required to declare their pronouns in school, nor will they be “instructed” in LGBT issues in pre-K through eighth grade. It will also be illegal for businesses to knowingly admit a minor to a sexually explicit, adult performance. Various public institutions including schools, prisons, and public buildings will be required to provide either sex-segregated or single-stall unisex bathrooms and changing facilities. And in the interest of protecting female athletics, the state will oversee the Florida High School Athletic Association.
Three years ago, Governor DeSantis refused to succumb to the global panic of closing schools — the catastrophic educational effects of which we’re only beginning to understand. Today, he’s holding his nerve in rejecting another social and medical experiment, one with similarly wide-reaching consequences. Conservatives, take heed.