Psychologist Blasts Reps. Fine & Massullo For Lying About Research

Psychologist Blasts Reps. Fine & Massullo For Lying About Research

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- In a statement posted online, Massachusetts-based psychologist Dr. Sebastian Barr decried the sponsors of HB 1421, the Trans Ban bill, for "misuse and misrepresentation" of he and his colleagues' scientific research into mental health and the transgender community. The bill's analysis cites Barr's research (their only source) as "evidence" that "psychosis is commonly experience by transgender people", a claim that Barr calls "inaccurate and a blatant misrepresenation of the data." Himself a transgender man, Dr. Barr shared that he alerted the Chairs of the Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee prior to last week's hearing on the bill, but that his communication was ignored. 

Through two House committee hearings, Representatives Fine and Massullo have repeated their dangerous and false insinuation that the experiences of transgender people are not valid in their defense of criminalizing health care for transgender youth, eliminating insurance coverage and telehealth access for care for transgender adults, and weaponizing the child custody process to dissolve existing agreements and re-assign transgender children into the hands of an unsupportive parent.

Equality Florida issued the following statement in response:

DeSantis' allies in the legislature are demonstrating the depths to which they will sink in service to the governor's right wing agenda and, by extension, his desperation to be President. The Trans Ban sponsors got caught lying about data they have warped in an effort to rationalize their cruelty. And transgender Floridians are paying the price. Across the state, people rely on the lifesaving medical care that is currently under assault from these right wing lawmakers willing to pervert and misrepresent health information to further their political aims. Free states don't criminalize health care, nor do they empower cynical politicians to lie about scientific data to wage war on medical freedom. Shame on Reps. Fine and Massullo for lying to the people of Florida. And shame on Governor DeSantis for unleashing and fanning the flames of this all-out assault on transgender people in our state.