Transgender Adults in Florida Losing Access to Care Under New State Laws

Transgender adults in Florida are grappling with a new law that makes it more onerous to receive gender-affirming care despite the law’s framing as being focused on trans children.

The law, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last month, bans gender-affirming care for minors, the use of state funding for gender-affirming care and restricts drag shows and the discussion of personal pronouns in primary schools.

Many transgender adults were surprised to learn, the Associated Press reported, that the bill also restricts when and how adults can access gender-affirming care.

The law requires that adults sign an informed consent form to access care and requires a doctor, rather than a nurse practitioner, to oversee that care in person. A separate law also allows Florida physicians and pharmacists to decline to treat transgender people.

Florida has one of the largest populations of transgender adults in the U.S. at nearly 95,000 people, according to survey data from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

Some transgender adults in Florida such as trans men Eli and Lucas, the AP reported, are seeking to move out of the state in an effort to seek health care that will support their gender identity. Eli and Lucas plan to move to Minnesota later this year.

“I’m losing everything except Eli and my pets moving out of here,” said Lucas, an employee at a financial aid office at a college in the state. “So this was not a decision that I took lightly at all.”

Lucas has lost access to gender-affirming care as a result of the law because he had received hormone replacement therapy from an Orlando clinic called SPEKTRUM Health Inc.

Lana Dunn, SPEKTRUM’s COO, estimated that 80 percent of the state’s trans adults received care from a nurse practitioner, and have lost access to care as a result of the new laws.

“Right now what we’re seeing in the community is just chaos,” Dunn said, according to the AP.