Original Article By Michael Gryboski
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a complaint against three professional groups, alleging they mislead the public regarding transgender procedures for minors.
Filed in the Circuit Court of the 19th Judicial Circuit in and for St. Lucie County on Tuesday, the lawsuit accuses the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics of creating “a treatment protocol that irreversibly alters children’s bodies to conform to their anxieties.”
“This sequence of interventions, which Defendants call ‘gender-affirming care,’ begins with puberty suppression, progresses to cross-sex hormones, and culminates in surgical procedures on minors’ breasts and genitals,” reads the complaint.
“But Defendants have a problem: there is no credible evidence that sex interventions alleviate pediatric gender dysphoria. To convince patients, insurance companies, regulators, and judges otherwise, Defendants initiated a coordinated campaign to develop ‘clinical guidelines’ recommending sex intervention for pediatric gender dysphoria.”
The state attorney general’s office went on to argue that “by continuing to reference one another over an extended period of time, Defendants’ guidelines built a façade of legitimacy.”
“The house of cards collapsed in 2024, however, when internal leaks, litigation discovery, and systematic reviews commissioned by national health agencies exposed Defendants’ ‘circular’ guidelines as an elaborate sham,” the suit added.
“Defendants’ reprehensible and immoral actions capitalize on the mental distress of children — as well as the natural affections and fears their parents — to help their members sell lucrative surgeries and drugs that irreversibly mutilate and chemically alter children’s bodies without providing any credible medical benefit.”
The complaint alleges that the three organizations have violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.
In a statement posted to X, Uthmeier said that he believes “these organizations failed to disclose the risks, limits, and evidence when promoting so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children.”
“For years, these groups insisted the recommendations were settled science, but behind closed doors, they knew the evidence was weak, they knew the outcomes uncertain, and the risks very real,” he added.
“Children were irrevocably harmed because truth was replaced with political activism. When organizations make medical claims, they have a duty to be honest.”
In response to the lawsuit, WPATH told United Press International that the organization is “committed to advancing cautious, evidence-informed guidelines for care to help improve the lives of transgender people globally so they may live full and authentic lives.”
According to the LGBT advocacy group Movement Advancement Project, 26 states and one territory ban prescribing puberty blocking drugs and performing body mutilating sex-change surgeries on children, while one state, Arizona, only bans said surgeries.
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