A federal appeals court recently vacated an injunction against Florida’s crackdown on “deception” surrounding the safety of “mutilating” procedures on children.
Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier successfully petitioned for the appeals court to rehear and vacate a June 22 ruling that blocked Florida from pursuing a claim against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for allegedly misleading the public on child sex-changes, Reuters reported Wednesday. (RELATED: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier Puts Homeowners’ Association On Notice Over Gun Ban)
“CA7 [7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] saw right through the Chicago-based district court’s attempt to stop our lawsuit against AAP for their deception on the safety of mutilating procedures on kids and removed every barrier the court tried to put up,” Uthmeier posted Wednesday. “Accountability will proceed in Florida!”
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering the AAP’s appeal.
Uthmeier initially sued the AAP in December 2025 for allegedly promoting sex-change procedures for minors as safe and reversible without sufficient scientific evidence. However, Clinton-appointed federal judge Matthew Kennedy of Illinois ruled June 8 that the claim cannot continue.
Kennedy, a trial court judge, wrote June 2 that the attorney general was “retaliating against AAP without a reasonable expectation of success.”
The AAP argued in a June 9 court filing that Uthmeier’s subsequent appeal “would allow Uthmeier to resume the retaliatory and unconstitutional enforcement action in Florida state court that the district court determined is causing irreparable harm to AAP while this Court considers the stay motion.”
Twenty-one other state attorneys general backed Uthmeier’s appeal.
“No Florida court has yet ruled that the Attorney General’s claims are utterly without merit under Florida law, and it very well may turn out that the Attorney General will win his lawsuit in state court,” the coalition wrote in an amicus brief June 11. “But the district court did not even attempt to discern how Florida courts would apply their law (as one would expect a federal court to do in any case about state law). It did not cite a single Florida decision. Rather, this Illinois-based district court considered one factor only—its own view of what makes for a ‘weak’ claim.”
Appeals court judge Scudder called Judge Kennedy’s June 22 injunction a “grievous blow to federalism.”
Transgender medical procedures have serious consequences. 95% of young transgender people on testosterone develop pelvic floor dysfunction; most have bowel issues and sexual dysfunction. As the Telegraph reported, “Around 87 per cent…had urinary symptoms such as incontinence, frequent toilet visits and bed-wetting, while 74 per cent had bowel issues including constipation or being unable to hold stools or wind in. Some 53 per cent suffered from sexual dysfunction…Almost half had an ‘orgasm disorder’, while a quarter suffered from pain during sexual intercourse.”
Transgender treatments can lead to a lifetime of pain, discomfort, and medications. As Britain’s National Health Service explains, hormones “need to be taken for the rest of your life, even if you have gender surgery.” An FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News.
Even the transgender lawyer who challenged Tennessee’s restrictions on transgender treatments for kids admitted to the Supreme Court that “completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender youth, even those not given gender-affirming treatment, and that “there is no evidence…that this [transgender-affirming] treatment reduces completed suicide.” The ACLU’s Chase Strangio admitted that to the Supreme Court.
Yet doctors who did sex changes often falsely told parents that they needed to give their kids a sex change to keep them from committing suicide, even though this isn’t true. One of America’s most prominent gender doctors, “Dr. Olson-Kennedy disclosed to how she speaks with parents of gender dysphoric patients: ‘We often ask parents, “Would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?’”
