DeSantis calls out media for using euphemisms to defend trans operations on minors
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis skewered a member of the media for questioning his protection of Florida youth by working to ban transgender medical operations on minors.
At the end of Florida’s 2023 legislative session, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis scorched the media for using euphemisms instead of talking about how sex reassignment surgery "cut[s] off the private parts of a 14 or 15-year-old."
DeSantis held a press conference Friday where he talked about the accomplishments from the legislative session. Among many other issues, Florida's SB 254, which bans transgender treatments for minors, passed the legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed by the governor soon.
One reporter began asking about "cultural issues" and if that's what "American voters" want before DeSantis cut him off, wondering if people were being paid to press the issue of transgender children.
DeSantis speaks at a press conference at the close of Florida’s 2023 legislative session.
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"Some of this stuff is totally manufactured," DeSantis said. "When you talk to people, and I know people in your industry will dress it up with a euphemism, and they’ll say it’s ‘healthcare’ to cut off the private parts of a 14 or 15-year-old. That is not healthcare, that is mutilation."
He added further, "When we’re standing up against that, we’re protecting these kids," and spoke about those who have stepped forward about regretting that they were allowed to pursue sex-change procedures while they were minors and are now detransitioning.
"It’s like the biggest regret of their life, they feel like they were manipulated. I understand that there’s some physicians that are very ideological about it, but the fact is, people go through a lot when they’re teenagers. You grow out of it most of the time in these situations, 80-90 percent resolves by the time you get there," DeSantis observed.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to Iowa voters on March 10, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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DeSantis pointed out that European countries that started experimenting with transgender policy earlier than America have recognized their errors, while America is still going off the deep end.
"Sweden, these European countries that went down this road have done a big U-turn. They said, ‘This is not good medical practice’, and so they don’t do it anymore," he said. "So, all we’re doing is doing what’s right, the idea that this would have been something would have been controversial even like 10 years ago would not have been something that anybody would have said anything about."
He emphasized the need to focus on the specifics of what the legislature accomplished, "The legislature prohibited doing things like double-mastectomies, they prohibited doing things with male private parts that are very graphic, they prohibited pumping these minors with puberty-blockers, which is just not something that’s appropriate. So I think those are appropriate guardrails."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made headlines for locking horns with major companies like Disney in his state. (Fox News)
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He noted that some of the same activists who are upset about banning such transgender procedures on minors were also "upset about the death penalty for raping the minors under 12, why are you upset about that? Is that really the hill that you want to die on?" he asked. "I think some of these people, particularly the serial abusers of these kids, I think the only appropriate punishment is capital punishment."
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