Florida Challenged Over Gender-Affirming Care Ban for Transgender Youth

By Devan Cole

(CNN) -- Four families in Florida sued the state on Thursday over new rules prohibiting gender-affirming care for transgender youth, arguing the bans violate the US Constitution and should be thrown out.

The two new rules from Florida's Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine prohibit medical professionals in the state from providing gender-affirming care to minors in the state with gender dysphoria, including by administering puberty blockers, providing cross-sex hormone therapy and performing "sex reassignment surgeries, or any other surgical procedures, that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics."

The rules provide an exception to the hormone therapy and puberty blocker provisions for minors that were undergoing such treatments prior to the effective date of the rules. The Board of Medicine's rule went into effect on March 16 and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine's rule goes into effect March 28.

The plaintiffs in the case are four anonymous transgender minors in Florida and their parents. Only one of the plaintiffs -- a 10-year-old trans girl -- had been receiving some form of gender-affirming care at the time that the case was brought, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in a federal district court in Tallahassee.

The plaintiffs are being represented by several leading LGBTQ rights groups, including the Human Rights Campaign and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. They name the state's surgeon general and the two medical boards and its members as defendants.