The DeSantis administration on Thursday moved to bypass the state legislature and in effect ban all transition-related care for transgender minors and people of any age on Medicaid, according to a letter obtained by NBC News to the state board regulating doctors and whose members are appointed by the governor. The move, reporter Marc Caputo notes, came “hours after another state agency issued a 46-page report to justify banning Medicaid coverage for transgender people of any age who want puberty blockers, hormone therapies, or gender-assignment surgery.” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who oversees the Health Department, wrote that “the scientific evidence supporting these complex medical interventions is extraordinarily weak” and asked the board to establish a “standard of care,” a process that could take months.
