FL: Detransition Provides Cover for Attempt to Limit Adult Transition

In Florida, proposed legislation attempts to stop insurance companies from covering transition for adults by forcing employers to pay for detransitions for the rest of their former employees lives.

by Evan Urquhart

A creatively bizarre piece of proposed legislation in Florida again seeks to single out transgender healthcare for special restrictions. This particular bill would force companies whose insurance covers transition to pay for detransition for the rest of their employees lives, according to the National Review where writer Brittany Bernstein wrote approvingly of the proposed law.

screenshot from the National Review

Detransition can mean a variety of things, and often does not involve regret or taking any active steps to reverse previous medical steps. However, here it is being used synonymously with regret, and an assumption is being made that people who detransition will seek medical treatment to transition in reverse so that they can more easily live as their assigned gender at birth. While this type of detransition is particularly rare, such a policy would have a chilling effect on companies covering such care, which is likely the bills true intent.

Like many pieces of proposed legislation targeting trans people and their medical care, it’s not clear if this bill is likely to pass, or whether it could defeat legal challenges in the courts if it did. It’s best viewed as one small part of a kitchen sink strategy among Republican lawmakers across the US. The strategy takes a scattershot approach, singling out the trans cmmunity for punishments and restrictions in any way Republicans can concieve. TWhile there’s a very real danger that some of these laws will one day go into effect, and that Republicans will eventually find ways to limit freedom of trans people to seek medical care, it’s impossible to know which of these laws will succeed, or what the next gambit will be.