Florida legislature passes bill to allow state to take custody of children subjected to transgender treatment
Jack Birle
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The Florida legislature passed a bill that bans transgender surgeries for minors and grants jurisdiction over children receiving gender-related treatment to courts in the state. The bill will head to Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) desk, where he is expected to sign it.
The bill has been amended to include a provision granting courts “temporary emergency jurisdiction” of minors if they have been “subjected to or is threatened with being subjected to sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures.” This temporary jurisdiction would play out most visibly in interstate child custody battles, according to the Poynter Institute.
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SB 254 passed the Florida House by an 83-28 vote on Thursday after passing the Florida Senate by a 26-13 vote earlier in the day.
DeSantis has previously called it “not acceptable” that transgender surgeries be allowed for minors.
“It is not ‘sinful’ to prohibit the mutilation of minors. It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for kids,” DeSantis tweeted in March.
The bill also prohibits “certain public entities from expending state funds” toward the surgeries and calls for doctors who perform transgender surgeries on minors to have their licenses suspended.
The legislation comes as several states are moving to ban transgender surgeries and procedures for minors, with Montana being the most recent state to do so.
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The measure comes as the Florida legislature also advanced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for adults to use the bathroom not corresponding to their biological sex.
“There’s not anything in the language of this bill that is targeting any specific group,” state GOP Sen. Erin Grall said on the floor Wednesday discussing the bill. “Rather, it speaks to the differences that we have as different sexes, as male and female.”