By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept
“EVERYONE HAS AN embarrassing moment from their childhood. A defining embarrassing moment,” said 12-year-old Lola Smith, standing before members of the Florida boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine in Tallahassee last Friday.
“That moment for me is happening right now, as I stand in front of a panel of strangers and publicly beg for my right to exist,” said Smith, who is nonbinary. “Nothing is more humiliating and dehumanizing than pleading for one’s own existence.”
Smith was the youngest person among dozens of Florida residents who spoke out at the hearing, which was ostensibly convened as a forum for public feedback on the boards’ newly proposed trans health care regulations. But after Smith and other attendees decried the medical boards’ decision to deny necessary gender-affirming health care to trans youth, board members responded with a unanimous vote for even tighter restrictions. The event amounted to little more than cruel political theater: a grim performance of medical expertise in service of fascistic ends…
