Welcome to Gender Analysis

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Zinnia Jones

Gender Analysis is a web series launched in 2014 exploring transgender science and life experiences in depth, and revealing the many insights to be found at their intersection. We take a closer look at fields such as sociology, public health, psychiatry, cognitive science, and more, weaving these diverse perspectives into a deeper understanding of gender-related phenomena. Gender Analysis goes beyond the 101s to educate both trans and cis viewers on some of the most fascinating dimensions of our lives – and the pressing issues we face in society.

Support Gender Analysis on Patreon

New episodes of Gender Analysis are published several times a month and are backed by our generous supporters on Patreon. Want to learn more? Check out our instant index for a quick introduction to the wide range of topics we cover:

Curious about…?

Gender dysphoria Self-discovery
How hormones work Bathroom bills
Finding a doctor Treatments for trans youth
Passing Sexuality
Transness and autism Paul McHugh
Regret and detransition Sex chromosomes
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Florida AHCA’s anti-trans expert G. Kevin Donovan stated in deposition that he’s never been a member of the American College of Pediatricians hate group; the group’s financial records indicate he paid membership dues for several years

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Zinnia Jones

In 2022, Florida hired a Catholic bioethicist to argue against gender-affirming care

Dr. Gerard Kevin Donovan (G. Kevin Donovan), a pediatric gastroenterologist and Catholic bioethicist, contributed one of five anti-trans expert reports (Attachment G) to Florida AHCA’s June 2, 2022 determination revoking Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming treatment. In the ensuing lawsuit against the exclusion (Dekker v. Weida), he went on to provide expert declarations for Florida in support of the rule (ECF no. 49 attachment 9; February 15, 2023 expert declaration). The court ultimately declared the ban invalid and found that Florida adopted this rule “for political reasons” (ECF no. 246), and evidence introduced during the trial showed that AHCA’s reports only served to support a predetermined outcome of the rulemaking process: “Care Effectively Banned” (ECF no. 182-36). Continue reading →

Posted in American College of Pediatricians, Catholic Church, Dekker v. Weida, Ethics, Faith and religion, Florida, Law, Transphobia and prejudice | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What we’ve all been waiting for: Third amended complaint and motion for preliminary injunction filed against Florida SB 254 adult trans care restrictions, including the ban on nurse practitioner prescribers and the mandated in-person consent forms

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Zinnia Jones

Key takeaways:

  • SB 254 created arbitrary and capricious roadblocks to nearly every trans adult in Florida seeking to continue their prescribed gender-affirming hormone therapy, with new restrictions and bans on the care we can receive from physicians, nurse practitioners, and telehealth providers. The only purpose of this law was to disrupt our ongoing care.
  • Because most trans adults in Florida receive their hormone therapy prescriptions from nurse practitioners or over telehealth, thousands of trans people have had their existing relationship with their provider severed by a legislative act, leaving a much smaller number of physicians available to handle this large number of patients. On July 21, the plaintiffs in Doe v. Ladapo added new legal challenges to these adult care restrictions.
  • You can help support Florida’s trans community and gender-affirming care providers by donating to SPEKTRUM Health, an NP-led nonprofit gender clinic fighting to restore access to hormone therapy for 2,500 patients, and donating to Southern Legal Counsel, an LGBTQ+ legal nonprofit leading the charge against SB 254’s adult care restrictions.

Since May 17, Florida SB 254 (Chapter No. 2023-90) has severely disrupted the established gender-affirming care prescriptions of thousands of transgender adults in Florida. While SB 254 codifies the Boards of Medicine and Osteopathy’s administrative bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for youth, several of its provisions go much further, obstructing all trans adults from continuing to access their ongoing medically necessary treatment and putting this care entirely out of reach for most people. An estimated 16,200 trans youth and 94,900 trans adults in Florida are affected by these bans – the second-largest population of trans people in the United States. The case Doe et al. v. Ladapo et al., initially filed in March on behalf of transgender minor plaintiffs and their parents, now includes an amended complaint (accepted July 27) with additional challenges to the sections of SB 254 restricting care for adults (ECF No. 114-1). Continue reading →

Posted in Dekker v. Weida, Doe v. Ladapo, Endocrinology, Ethics, Florida, Health care, Law, News, Politics, Psychology and psychiatry, SB 254, Surgery, Transgender medicine, Transphobia and prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom offered a Florida anti-trans hate group $15,000 to “refute” the WPATH Standards of Care “for use in litigation”

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Zinnia Jones

A wider lens on the American College of Pediatricians.

Recent subpoenas by Republican state governments against trans-supportive professional and medical organizations

  • In 2022 and 2023, professional organizations endorsing gender-affirming care received extensive subpoenas from the states of Alabama and Florida during cases on the states’ legislation and policy limiting access to transition treatment for trans youth and adults. These subpoenas and other requests for production of documents have demanded several years of the groups’ internal discussions and deliberations on their support for gender-affirming treatment, as well as other material relating to their trans-supportive position statements.
  • The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Endocrine Society (ES), and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) received subpoenas beginning in August 2022 in Boe v. Marshall (previously Eknes-Tucker v. Ivey, the suit against Alabama’s total ban on gender-affirming medical care for trans youth). In November 2022, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) subpoenaed these three groups and more than a dozen other trans-supportive professional organizations who had submitted amicus briefs in the case against the state’s Medicaid coverage exclusion for transition care (Dekker v. Weida challenging Rule 59G-1.050(7)). This April, State Rep. Randy Fine of the Florida House Health and Human Services Committee was authorized to issue subpoenas against the Florida Chapter of the AAP (FCAAP), promptly resulting in a lawsuit (FCAAP v. Fine, doc 10-1; April 23, 2022 Renner letter to Fine).
  • Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall explained his justification for the subpoenas in a filing with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) senior counsel Roger Brooks: “How did those groups come to their conclusions? Do the positions represent the considered view of membership, or only of carefully ‘stacked’ committees? What process did they use to determine who would have input, and who would not? Did the groups conduct systematic examinations of the scientific literature, or did they cherry-pick studies? In short: Is there evidence indicating that the alleged ‘consensus’ is not actually based on best scientific practices but, at least in part, on ideology, self-interest, organizational politicking, or other considerations?” (Boe v. Marshall, doc 219, Jan 17, 2023)
  • When the AAP, ES, WPATH and others challenged the AHCA’s subpoenas, Secretary Jason Weida argued: “Openness and transparency are hallmarks of the scientific method. Casting themselves in the underlying case as the standard bearers of the prevailing scientific view regarding gender dysphoria treatment—and used as such by Plaintiffs—the non-parties now seek to shield their perspective from any scrutiny. The non-parties refuse to answer whether their perspective is the result of careful study and debate among their memberships or the result of a handful of people dictating a result, as a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested.” (In re subpoenas served on AAP et al., doc 11, Jan 20, 2023) That past president is Joseph Zanga, founder of the American College of Pediatricians.

Continue reading →

Posted in American College of Pediatricians, Catholic Church, Dekker v. Weida, Faith and religion, Florida, Health care, Hoaxes, Law, Politics, Regret and detransition, Rhetoric, Transphobia and prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Andre’s opinion”: Florida Medicaid agency paid thousands to a hate group leader to help ghostwrite their anti-trans policy; he copied nearly all of his sources from the hate group

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Zinnia Jones

Dr. Andre Van Mol is a leader of the SPLC-recognized hate group American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) as well as the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and is an elder at Bethel Church in Redding, California. This church and its “dead raising teams” have notably attempted to reanimate long-dead bodies via prayer. Van Mol has served as co-chair of ACPeds’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality with past executive director Michelle Cretella, and was hired in April 2022 by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to assist in drafting reference material to justify the planned exclusion of transition care from Florida Medicaid coverage. Continue reading →

Posted in American College of Pediatricians, Dekker v. Weida, Faith and religion, Florida, Law, Politics, Transphobia and prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What we learned in April about the Florida AHCA’s Medicaid transition care exclusion Rule 59G-1.050(7) and subsequent litigation in Dekker v. Weida: Summary

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Zinnia Jones

Summary

In August 2022, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) enacted rule 59G-1.050(7) revoking state Medicaid coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries. This rule and the Florida Boards of Medicine’s administrative bans on trans youth care were supported by the AHCA’s June 2 Generally Acceptable Professional Medical Standards determination, which was the product of a highly nonstandard process uniquely involving anti-trans experts from outside the agency. The rule was promptly challenged in a September 2022 suit against AHCA by plaintiffs Dekker et al. (4:22-cv-00325); a preliminary injunction was denied and the challenged exclusion has remained in effect pending trial in May 2023.

“A conclusion in search of an argument”

On Friday, April 28, 2023, the plaintiffs filed their trial brief (Doc. 199) with over 350 attached exhibits containing information about the AHCA’s anti-trans rulemaking process that was not previously known to the public. This evidence confirms early coordination between the office of Governor Ron DeSantis, the Florida Department of Health, and the AHCA at meetings in early April 2022 (Doc. 200-5). AHCA chief litigation counsel Andrew T. Sheeran was even seeking out anti-trans expert witnesses, including Quentin Van Meter (Pl. 337) and anti-gay conversion therapy provider Miriam Grossman (Pl. 274), prior to FLDOH’s April 20, 2022 anti-trans press release. A series of diagrams dated to June 2022 describe a “Gender Dysphoria/Transgender Health Care Policy Pathway” (Plaintiffs’ trial exhibit 296), “Non-Legislative Pathway” (Pl. 295), and “Projected Rulemaking Timeline” (Pl. 294), beginning with state surgeon general Joseph Ladapo’s April anti-trans guidance and ending in June-September 2022 with “Care Effectively Banned”. This indicates that the AHCA had not initiated an open-ended assessment of evidence on certain medical treatments with the possibility that this evidence could be persuasively robust, but rather that this exclusion was already decided at the outset. Jeffrey English, AHCA’s “GAPMS guy”, called the finding “a conclusion in search of an argument” (Doc. 199). Continue reading →

Posted in Florida, Health care, Law, News, Politics, Rhetoric, Transphobia and prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment