Florida sues leading medical groups for supporting gender-affirming care

The state of Florida is suing several leading medical groups for following the scientific consensus that gender-affirming care is safe and life-saving for transgender youth.

Republican attorney general James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, accusing the groups of supposedly violating the RICO Act by pushing "discredited clinical guidelines as 'evidence-based standards of care' to sell memberships."

The lawsuit bases the majority of its claims on the 2024 National Health Service report by Hilary Cass, which incorrectly stated there is “no good evidence” for gender-affirming care. The report was immediately debunked for dismissing evidence from over 100 studies that found the care is beneficial by using discredited metrics and theories, while also ignoring the countless other high-quality studies that have findings in support of the care.

It is not just the American Academy of Pediatrics — the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults, but minors as well.

Several studies demonstrate that depression and anxiety is alleviated in youth when they socially transition and receive treatment for gender dysphoria. Many other longitudinal studies show that gender-affirming care vastly improve quality of life for people who identify as transgender. Out of 55 peer-reviewed studies, not a single one found that gender transition has negative outcomes.

Florida's lawsuit also claims that youth identifying as trans was a "rarity a decade ago" and that gender dysphoria diagnoses have "skyrocketed in recent years." It blames this "social contagion" on "social media, smartphones, a lack of in-person interaction, and other societal ills."

Though not directly referenced in the lawsuit, the language mimics the so-called "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" hypothesis, which claims being trans is a "trend" and has long been debunked as junk science. The entire theory is based on a single poster abstract in 2017 by Lisa Littman, who herself has admitted that it is not a formal diagnosis. Poster abstracts are often published when the material is not only too weak to be a journal article, but of insufficient quality to even be accepted for oral presentation at a conference.

A 2022 study in Pediatrics found that out of 91,937 adolescents in 2017 and 105,437 in 2019, the total percentage of those who identified as trans decreased from 2.4 percent in 2017 to 1.6 percent in 2019, which would not support the "social contagion" hypothesis. Researchers concluded that ROGD "should not be used to restrict the provision of gender-affirming medical care."

The lawsuit also claims "these feelings usually 'disappear' after [youth] reach puberty." This is also false, as a 2021 survey involving 28,000 trans adults in the U.S. found that only eight percent had ever detransitioned in their life, and over 62 percent of those who did only did so temporarily, citing social stigma. A separate 2023 study in the National Library of Medicine found that over 82.5 percent of those who detransition cite "external factors" such as "pressure from family and societal stigma."