Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is hot on the campaign trail. But one activist on the judiciary threatens to ruin his career.
And this federal judge slapped Ron DeSantis with a devastating ruling.
Republicans are seeing a very crowded field leading up to the 2024 presidential primaries.
So far there are already 11 candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring, including Mike Pence, Tim Scott, and Chris Christie.
If you look at the polls, however, there are really only two viable candidates this go-round – Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
One way Ron DeSantis has tried to set himself apart from Trump is by his no-holds-barred approach to the culture war.
But a federal judge is now handing him a setback.
In his judgment, Judge Robert Hinkle stated that “gender identity is real,” and issued an injunction against Senate Bill 254, Florida’s new law protecting children from being subjected to cross-sex hormone therapy and puberty blockers for so-called “gender transitions.”
Hinkle was appointed by Clinton.
The decision comes after the parents of three children filed a lawsuit against Florida’s surgeon general. The parents believe that not permitting doctors to expose their children to mutilating operations and treatments violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
The plaintiffs, who had two 11-year-old girls and an eight-year-old male, claimed that Florida had failed to demonstrate a rational rationale for prohibiting cross-sex medicines and puberty blockers.
The therapies are described in the lawsuit as “safe and effective medically necessary healthcare.” The three children will be able to continue receiving puberty blockers as a result of Hinkle’s decision.
Despite the parents’ claims that these pills are vital for their children’s happiness and well-being, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about the drugs last year.
The FDA discovered that administering these medications to adolescents can result in serious side effects such as brain enlargement or blindness.
The FDA also uncovered a possible link between puberty blockers and pseudotumor cerebri, a disorder that mimics the symptoms of a brain tumor. This disease was discovered in six females aged five to twelve who were using drugs.
Vision problems, headaches, vomiting, high blood pressure, and abducens neuropathy were among the symptoms. The incidents were regarded clinically serious, and pharmacies were instructed to mark medications for children with warning labels.
“There are risks attendant to not using these treatments, including the risk––in some instances, the near certainty––of anxiety and depression and even suicidal ideation,” Hinkle stated in his ruling.
“The challenged statute ignores the benefits that many patients realize from these treatments and the substantial risk posed by foregoing the treatments.”
Hinkle went on to say that if children are not given these medications, they will suffer “irreparable harm” as their bodies mature in their “sex assigned at birth.” Hinkle argued: “The treatment will affect the patients themselves, nobody else, and will cause the defendants no harm.”
Cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers, according to Hinkle, can also be utilized to treat minors with disorders unrelated to “trans” therapy.
The decision comes less than a month after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed Bill 254 into law.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
