Text of FL H 211 (2022)

A bill to be entitled An act relating to youth gender and sexual identity; creating s. 456.0335, F.S.; providing a short title; defining the term "sex"; providing criminal penalties for health care practitioners who perform or cause to be performed specified practices on a minor under certain conditions; providing applicability; providing an effective date. Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida: Section 1. Section 456.0335, Florida Statutes, is created to read: 456.0335 Vulnerable Child Protection Act.— (1) This section may be cited as the "Vulnerable Child Protection Act." (2) As used in this section, the term "sex" means the biological state of being female or male based on sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profiles. (3) A health care practitioner who performs any of the following practices upon a minor, or who causes such practices to be performed upon a minor, for the purpose of attempting to change the minor's sex or for the purpose of affirming the minor's perception of the minor's sex if that perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083: (a) Surgeries that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty; (b) Mastectomy; (c) Administering, prescribing, or supplying the following medications that induce transient or permanent infertility: 1. Puberty-blocking medication, which stops or delays normal puberty; 2. Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone, to females; or 3. Supraphysiologic doses of estrogen, to males; or (d) Removing any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue. (4) This section does not apply to a health care practitioner acting in accordance with a good faith medical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, including: (a) External biological sex characteristics that are unresolvably ambiguous, such as the minor being born with having 46 XX chromosomes with virilization, 46 XY chromosomes with undervirilization, or both ovarian and testicular tissue. (b) A sexual development disorder whereby a physician has determined through genetic testing that the minor does not have the normal chromosome structure for a male or a female. Section 2. This act shall take effect July 1, 2022.