Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants the medical records of all transgender students at his state's institutions of higher learning.
DeSantis asked to see a breakdown of the medical data of students who received gender-affirming care from public entities. This includes anyone in the general public who sought gender-affirming care at the hospitals located at these public universities. In addition, he wants their ages and the dates they received gender-affirming care. The deadline to submit those records was February 10. ...
When Insider asked why the state has requested the health data of transgender college students from public universities, the state's deputy press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said: "We are committed to fully understanding the amount of public funding that is going toward such nonacademic pursuits to best assess how to get our colleges and universities refocused on education and truth."
Leaving aside for the moment the question of why DeSantis thinks students getting medical care hampers colleges' and universities' ability to focus on education and truth, how turning over patient records to the governor is not a violation of HIPAA confidentiality rules is beyond me.
Officials at the University of South Florida announced that they would comply with DeSantis administration's demands, but assured students that their privacy rights would be maintained by redacting information that would identify who the transgender students are.
But as one USF student explained,
“Even if it’s technically legal because it doesn’t have names, it’s still immoral. Because it’s a small community and (the data is) sorted by age and very specific personalized treatment plans, you can dox someone with this. You can find people out and harass them, with the Florida sunshine law.”
Given Mr. DeSantis's record to date, I'm guessing that facilitating the doxing of transgender students is not a bug in his plans, but a feature.
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