Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit against three major medical associations alleging they engaged in deceptive practices for financial gain when promoting irreversible gender procedures on children.
The state seeks a judgment declaring the promotion of sex-rejecting procedures as both misleading and as “a pattern of racketeering activity.” The state requests the court levy a civil penalty of $1 million against each organization, bar them from future misleading advertising, and impose a $10,000 penalty for each false claim they have made regarding the safety, efficacy, and reversibility of these procedures.
The lawsuit, filed in the 19th Judicial Circuit of Florida in Saint Lucie County, names the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The complaint alleges that these medical organizations violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA) and the Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). The state accuses these organizations of deceptive acts and racketeering by conducting a “coordinated campaign” to “mislead patients, parents, insurers, regulators, and courts” about the “safety, reversibility, and efficacy” of these interventions on gender-confused children. AG Uthmeier contends the organizations used “weak” and “flawed” evidence to develop clinical guidelines for treating gender-confused minors and “misrepresented the science” to mask the risks and make a profit.
“[The Organizations’] reprehensible and immoral actions capitalize on the mental distress of children—as well as the natural affections and fears [of] 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,” reads the lawsuit. “In their wake is a growing number of ‘detransitioners’ who feel ‘butchered by institutions [they] thought [they] could trust.’”
The lawsuit delves into the history of the development of gender interventions and their subsequent systematic reviews from international agencies and scientists. According to reviews from Finland, Sweden, the U.S, and the landmark Cass Review from the United Kingdom, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries do not improve a child’s mental health, but rather interfere with normal puberty and remove healthy body parts causing irreversible damage. The known long-term effects associated with these sex-rejecting procedures can include infertility, suicide risk, bone density loss, lifelong medical dependence, and other unknown “neuropsychological consequences,” the lawsuit stated.
“For years, these groups insisted the recommendations were settled science, but behind closed doors, they knew the evidence was weak,” AG Uthmeier stated in a public announcement. “Parents were not told the full story. In fact, some parents were told that if they didn’t put their kids through permanent, life-altering, sick procedures like double mastectomies and castration, that their child would commit suicide.”
“Not only is that unethical and dangerous medicine, but it is against the law,” continued AG Uthmeier. “Children were irrevocably harmed because truth was replaced with political activism.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “This lawsuit by the state of Florida is about holding the medical purveyors of harmful gender ideology accountable for irreversibly hurting children. Medical organizations have a responsibility to ensure that the standards of care they promote are grounded in sound science and transparency. This case is about protecting vulnerable children from irreversible medical interventions that will not deliver the benefits they have been promised. These experimental procedures need to be banned nationwide.”
