Anti-trans bill in Florida House receiving backlash from UNF students

As anti-trans legislation makes its way through the Florida legislature, UNF LGBTQ rights advocates are concerned about the effects the new laws could have on the younger trans community.

The Youth Gender and Sexual Identity (H0211) bill has been proposed in the Florida House of Representatives and has gone through the first reading. Bill H0211 would prohibit medical practitioners from providing gender-affirming services to minors. According to the bill, any practitioner may be subject to a misdemeanor charge if he or she prescribes hormonal medication or perform gender-affirming surgeries to children.

The bill does include exceptions. In order for the minor to get sex reassignment surgery, he or she must exhibit physical sex characteristics that are only resolvable through surgery. This would be for people born with both male and female reproductive organs and people who do not exhibit male or female chromosome patterns.

The UNF LGBTQ+ Center and other UNF students are concerned about the impact this may have on children in the future should this bill be passed.

Noah Miller, a trans-masculine nonbinary student at UNF who uses they/them pronouns, described their experience with gender-affirming practices as terrifying, yet enriching. Miller believes that had they not been prescribed the medication, their mental health would have drastically deteriorated.

“It was already a pain to go through and get the medication. It required so many documents to be signed and months of therapy for them to determine that I needed the treatment,” Miller said.

The UNF LGBTQ+ Center officials believe there will be drastic repercussions for Jacksonville youth if this bill is passed in the state of Florida. Kyler Denk, a student assistant at the UNF LGBTQ+ Center, said the bill could cause a spike in mental health issues.

“Just in general, suicide rates would increase because gender-affirming care is lifesaving,” said Denk.

Denk said he believes that with the bill continuously being brought up in the Florida legislature, there is a potential for it to be passed, which will cause tensions to rise between the trans community and other students in the Jacksonville area.

The UNF LGBTQ+ Center is an organization on campus that aids LGBTQ students and informs other students about the community and how to support the community through college. The center has many programs aimed at transgender students, including Q Chats, a peer-led discussion group of UNF LGBTQ+ students.

Haiden Baier, the program assistant at the LGBTQ+ Center, said Q Chats are educational discussions on different identities. The center is always open to questions about what is going on in the legislature.

“We’re always open to having students come in and just sit and chat with us. If a student comes in and just wants to chat about how they’re feeling about these kinds of bills, about how they’re affecting their lives, we’re here to talk to them and to get them connected to services if they need them,” Baier said.

For more information on the transgender community, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) has multiple resources on advocacy programs and current rights for trans people. The NCTE also includes a section dedicated to highlighting the anti-trans bills in each state’s legislature. Right now, the NCTE has found that almost 75% of trans students feel unsafe at school.

“This bill would prevent so many kids from getting what they need. They just want to be themselves, and this bill is forcing them to continue to feel uncomfortable,” Miller said.