Ron DeSantis Bans Disney Cast Members’ Medical Treatments

An anti-transgender law signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis put the health of 95,000 Floridians at risk–including hundreds of Walt Disney World Resort cast members.

In May of 2023, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 254. The law prohibited gender-affirming care for anyone under 18 but also placed strict restrictions on adult transgender health care. Even though a federal judge struck down the law last month, it stoked fear and disorder among tens of thousands of medical professionals and transgender Floridians.

According to a recent report from The Independent, clinicians stopped almost all transgender adult healthcare in Florida when SB 254 passed. Though it didn’t technically prohibit all gender-affirming care for adults, most doctors and pharmacies stopped offering hormone replacement therapy (HRT) out of fear of legal repercussions.

Nicole Levy, 45, is a transgender woman who lives in Tampa. She previously had no problems getting her HRT but found it blocked when she visited the pharmacy in May 2023.

“I kind of went into a freefall of emotions for a good week, just trying to figure out what was happening,” Levy told The Independent. “Then, when I did get the [clinic’s] receptionist on the phone, she started to cry…In my moment of confusion, I felt like I had to ask her: ‘Are you okay?’ And she said, ‘no.’ She didn’t know how she was gonna get her hormones either.”

Activists say the year of adult transgender healthcare bans permanently destroyed many avenues of care for the 95,000 transgender Floridians. The state has the second-highest trans and non-binary population in the country.

Andre Clarke, co-founder of TransNetwork and practice manager at Love the Golden Rule, an LGBTQIA+ medical clinic, said that the fear “is absolutely not gone” after a judge overturned SB 254.

“I am quite sure that DeSantis knew that everything was going to be overturned. But it stoked the fear, it stoked the hatred,” he said. “That is a win for them, and it is a continued loss for our community.”

Clinics and pharmacies stopped providing theoretically legal care in the wake of SB 254. Those practices that continued offering adult transgender healthcare were inundated with new patients.

Clarke said the Florida Department of Health only offered a draft version of the specialized documentation that clinicians were required to use. This scared clinicians, who knew that a mistake could result in a lawsuit.

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“We were legally advisthe ed to discontinue all trans care,” he recalled. “…No one knew what the official rules were. They were always a temporary statement pending a secret committee conversation, in a location that didn’t provide parking, in a private building where they could [accuse] anyone that wanted to protest it of trespassing.”

Another TransNetwork co-founder, Tristan Brynes, said the nonprofit foundation saw increased cries for help from the transgender community in the wake of SB 254.

“As a mental health counselor, I definitely saw an increase in depression [and] an increase in suicidal ideation,” Brynes told The Independent. “I saw people scared enough to just pack up and move, whether they had a plan or not, because they didn’t trust that it wouldn’t get worse.

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“It was especially parents of minors, but not just parents of minors,” he continued. “Adults were so scared they just loaded up their car and off they drove, hoping that once they settled in they’d find a job. We lost some really good people and advocates in our area.”

Levy experienced “extreme depression, isolation, withdrawal, confusion” when DeSantis passed SB 254.

“My need for healthcare is not cosmetic; it is not for vanity,” she said. “It is literally healthcare to be who I choose to be, to be happy, in my inner self.”

What do you think of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s anti-transgender legislation? Share your opinion with us in the comments.