On the recommendation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' budget office, the Sunshine State's public universities are being asked to submit detailed information on the services they provide to people suffering from gender dysphoria, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The request comes after Florida's medical boards took action in November to bar doctors from performing gender-affirming treatments or surgeries on minors.
According to the Times, the request, dated Jan. 11, said the state's budget office "has learned that several state universities provide services to persons suffering from gender dysphoria" and it needs more information on what those services entail.
The administration is reportedly seeking the number of "encounters" where sex reassignment was sought and is also asking for the names of facilities that patients were referred to. It is also requesting the number of people diagnosed with ICD-10 Code F64, which is the International Classification of Diseases' code for gender dysphoria.
The budget office also asked for the number of individuals prescribed hormones, puberty blockers, hormone antagonists, and a list of specific surgical procedures. A breakdown of patients' ages and all policies and draft policies associated with sex reassignment treatments are also sought.
Among the schools required to disclose information on their services are the University of South Florida through its USF Health branch; the University of Florida, which operates a Center for Transgender Health in Jacksonville; Florida State University through its University Health Services division; and the University of Central Florida, which offers services through its Trans Care Team, according to the Times.
The office reportedly set a deadline of Feb. 10.
Citing a "lack of conclusive evidence," Florida issued guidelines last April banning gender-affirming treatments, including social transitioning, for children and teens. The state's Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine both later voted to prohibit doctors from performing gender-affirming medical procedures on minors.
"When they say gender-affirming care, they mean giving puberty blockers to teenage girls and teenage boys," DeSantis said in October, according to Breitbart. "They mean doing double mastectomies on young girls. They mean chemically-castrating young boys."
"That is wrong," he continued. "We are not going to allow that to happen in the state of Florida. A lot of kids go through a lot of different things. A lot of the dysphoria resolves itself by the time they become adults and we have a number of people that have spoken out in favor of what we're doing, to say you should not do this with minors.
"They went through it when they were minors. Now they're adults and they regret it. Other countries in Europe that went down this road have now backtracked."