TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A memo sent to the chairs of all of Florida’s University Board of Trustees by the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis asked for information on what gender dysphoria treatment services are offered on campus.
It’s the second information-gathering survey to be sent to Florida colleges and universities, following December’s request for diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory program and initiative lists.
In the memo, Chris Spencer, the Director of the Office of Policy and Budget, said it was DeSantis’ constitutional duty as the state’s chief executive to ensure state laws are “faithfully executed.”
When asked for comment on the new requests for institutions, the governor’s office quoted DeSantis during his second inaugural address as governor, where he said officials “must ensure school systems are responsive to parents and to students, not partisan interest groups, and we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology.”
Spencer’s letter said the governor would “require information in writing” regarding “several state universities” that “provide services to persons suffering from gender dysphoria.”
Enclosed with the letter and request was a list of instructions for how to best respond to the information request.
The instructions request that universities “provide all information or data for all individuals, including those who were under 18 at the time of any encounter or treatment, as the case may be,” for gender dysphoria.
Additionally, Spencer’s letter provided a set of definitions and terms pertaining to the request, such as defining an “encounter” as an interaction between a patient and a health care provider for the purpose of providing health care services or assessing a patient’s health. It also defines sex-reassignment treatment, such as prescribing puberty blockers, hormone antagonists, hormones, or potential surgical or medical procedures to “change the body of the individual so that it conforms to the subjective sense of identity of the individual” if it is at odds with the “natal sex” they were born as.
In the list of requests from state colleges and universities, the governor’s office asked that institutions provide:
- The number of encounters for sex reassignment treatment, or where such treatment was sought
- The total number of encounters and the number of first-time encounters for sex-reassignment treatment, or where such treatment was sought
- The total number of encounters and the number of patients referred to another facility for sex-reassignment treatment
- A list of all facilities to which patients were referred for sex-reassignment treatment
- Provide the number of individuals diagnosed under ICD-10 Code F64, meaning the number of people diagnosed as having a gender identity disorder under the International Classification of Diseases
- The number of individuals diagnosed under ICD-10 Code F64 before their first encounter for sex-reassignment treatment, and where such treatment was sought
- The number of individuals diagnosed under ICD-10 Code F64 during or as a result of their first encounter for sex-reassignment treatment and where such treatment was sought
- The total number of individuals diagnosed under ICD-10 Code F64 during or after an encounter that followed their first encounter for sex-reassignment treatment and where such treatment was sought
- The number of individuals who participated in the encounters, but were not diagnosed under ICD-10 Code F64
- The number of people who underwent a variety of sex-reassignment treatments or procedures, detailed below.
The state also asked for the number of patients who were prescribed puberty blockers, hormones, and hormone antagonists, or the following medical procedures, all broken down by patient age.
The procedures were mastectomies, breast augmentations, orchiectomies, penectomies, vaginoplasties, hysterectomies, metoidioplasties, vaginectomies, salpingo-oophorectomies, phalloplasties, scrotoplasties, or any other medical procedure, and to break down what the other procedures were by category, if any.
Descriptions of procedures were also requested for the aforementioned other, also with the request to provide a breakdown of how many patients, and how old each was.
State officials also requested a list of the number of patients who did not receive behavioral health services before their first sex-reassignment treatment, the number who had less than three months, less than six months, less than one year, or a year or more of behavioral health services before beginning sex-reassignment treatment.
For the purpose of fulfilling the information request, officials asked the data be limited to any time between Jan. 1, 2018, and the present, as well as include any draft policies or procedures.
“Like DEI and CRT, radical gender ideology has supplanted academics at many institutions of higher education,” a spokesperson for the governor told WFLA.com. “We are committed to fully understanding the amount of public funding that is going toward such non-academic pursuits to best assess how to get our colleges and universities refocused on education and truth.”
