GOP-led Florida House panel approves subpoenas to groups supporting gender-affirming care

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A GOP-led Florida House panel authorized subpoenas seeking records from two medical organizations that support gender-affirming treatment for minors, the latest move in an ongoing legal and political fight over transgender care in Florida.

The House Committee on Health & Human Services on Monday approved subpoenas demanding records from the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Florida Psychiatric Society — two organizations that are party to a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn state regulations that ban Medicaid from covering ban gender-affirming care for minors.

The records being sought include how the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Florida Psychiatric Society concluded that surgeries and hormone therapies are safe treatments for gender dysphoria, or the feelings of discomfort or distress some transgender people experience when their bodies don’t align with their gender.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support gender-affirming care for adults and adolescents. Medical experts also have said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery. Instead, doctors are more likely to recommend counseling, social transitioning and hormone replacement therapy.

The subpoenas are the first step by the committee toward investigating how medical organizations established the care standards.

“It’s very curious — if you’ve got the science on your side, why would you want to hide,” state Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay) said after the meeting. “We want to see the science, and I’m afraid we’re going to be disappointed by what we see.”

The Florida Senate earlier this month approved a proposed ban on surgeries and prescription treatments for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The legislation also prohibits universities, local governments, the health insurance plans for state workers and providers contracted with the state’s Medicaid Managed Care program from using public dollars to cover the treatments.

The Florida House has not approved the Senate’s measure.

The subpoenas mirror a move by Florida’s Medicaid regulator, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which issued an extensive subpoena in March seeking similar records from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association and others. A federal appeals court in D.C. granted an emergency halt to that subpoena.

Fine said the finalized subpoenas will be signed by Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast), who requested the House panel authorize the subpoenas. Renner wrote that the organizations were reluctant to turn over the same records in the federal lawsuit challenging the ban on Medicaid covering the costs associated with gender-affirming care.

“And they did so notwithstanding their knowledge (and likely, their intent) that their own standards and endorsements are being cited in litigation as a basis to effectively veto state law,” Renner wrote in the undated letter.

Alicia E. Adams, executive director of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said her board will review the subpoena and discuss how to respond.

Democrats on the panel opposed the subpoenas, including state Rep. Ashley Gantt (D-Miami), who said the House already sent a bill to the Senate that would ban all insurance companies from covering transgender procedures last week.

Gantt also tried to get an amendment approved that would probe organizations that oppose gender-affirming care that have testified before the Legislature. But, with Republicans in supermajorities, Gantt’s amendment failed.

“Then maybe we can both look at this issue from both sides,” Gantt said.