A federal appeals court recently ruled that Florida can crack down on “deception” surrounding the safety of “mutilating” procedures on children.
Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier successfully appealed a Chicago-based panel’s June 22 ruling that blocked Florida from pursuing a claim against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for allegedly misleading the public on child sex-changes, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Uthmeier’s office and the AAP did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
“CA7 [7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] saw right through the Chicago-based district court’s attempt to stop our lawsuit against AAP for their deception on the safety of mutilating procedures on kids and removed every barrier the court tried to put up,” Uthmeier posted Wednesday. “Accountability will proceed in Florida!”
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering the AAP’s appeal.
Uthmeier initially sued the AAP in December 2025 for allegedly promoting sex-change procedures for minors as safe and reversible without sufficient scientific evidence. However, Clinton-appointed federal judge Matthew Kennedy of Illinois ruled June 8 that the claim cannot continue.
Kennedy wrote June 2 that the attorney general was “retaliating against AAP without a reasonable expectation of success,” the DCNF previously reported.
The AAP argued in a June 9 court filing that Uthmeier’s subsequent appeal “would allow Uthmeier to resume the retaliatory and unconstitutional enforcement action in Florida state court that the district court determined is causing irreparable harm to AAP while this Court considers the stay motion.”
Twenty-one other state attorneys general backed Uthmeier’s appeal.
“No Florida court has yet ruled that the Attorney General’s claims are utterly without merit under Florida law, and it very well may turn out that the Attorney General will win his lawsuit in state court,” the coalition wrote in an amicus brief June 11. “But the district court did not even attempt to discern how Florida courts would apply their law (as one would expect a federal court to do in any case about state law). It did not cite a single Florida decision. Rather, this Illinois-based district court considered one factor only—its own view of what makes for a ‘weak’ claim.”
Kennedy opted to rule Uthmeier’s appeal on the bench as opposed to giving it a hearing with a three-judge panel, as is standard practice, according to Reuters. Judge Scuddler called the subsequent June 22 injunction a “grievous blow to federalism” in his dissent.
(DCNF)