Ohio House Bill 68 will become law on April 23, banning transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care and preventing transgender girls from participating in women’s sports.
On Jan. 10, both the Ohio House and Senate voted to override Mike DeWine’s veto of the bill.
In his veto message, DeWine wrote about the time he spent speaking with people on both sides of the debate. Although he is a Republican who sides with his colleagues in the Ohio Statehouse on most issues, he understands the grave consequences of this bill.
“Ohio would be saying that the State, that the government, knows what is best medically for a child rather than the two people who love that child the most, the parents,” he wrote. “While there are rare times in the law, in other circumstances, where the State overrules the medical decisions made by the parents, I can think of no example where this is done not only against the decision of the parents, but also against the medical judgment of the treating physician and the treating team of medical experts.”
HB 68 follows a tide of anti-trans legislation that has been introduced in many states in recent years. Politicians in many states have been pushing legislation that would block critical gender-affirming medical care for transgender people. In 2023, 17 states passed legislation restricting transgender care for minors.
According to a study conducted by Gallup, the view that changing one’s gender is morally acceptable has decreased by 7% since 2021 among Republicans and people who do not know a transgender individual.
It is crucial that legislation does not take life-saving health care decisions out of the hands of trans people, medical officials and families. These treatments should remain personal, and should not be decided by politicians.
The Beachcomber staff stands with our trans peers in opposition to this bill.
We believe that trans minors around the world deserve the right to gender affirming care and to live without hostility and fear.
No legislation passed in the Ohio Statehouse or the U.S. Congress should be based on religious values.
The decision to receive gender affirming care should be made by the child, their parents and their medical professionals, not by politicians in Columbus.
Furthermore, this bill has the potential to be lethal to trans children in Ohio.
The bill bans the specialized, lifesaving care offered by Ohio’s hospitals to gender-questioning youth.
The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ youth seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S. and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds, with rates even higher for trans minors.
“Ultimately, I believe this is about protecting human life,” DeWine wrote. “Many parents have told me that their child would be dead today if they had not received the treatment they received from an Ohio children’s hospital. I have also been told, by those that are now grown adults, that but for this care, they would have taken their lives when they were teenagers.”
While many voters in Ohio might disagree with the morality of switching genders, we must agree on the importance of saving lives and allowing these critical medical decisions to be left to the individuals and their families.
This bill also denies those born male the right to participate in girls’ sports in Ohio, no matter the extent of their hormonal treatment, overruling the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s current policies. We believe that the sport a child can play should be decided by the gender-affirming care they have received.
Sports can be a pivotal part of the high school experience, and limiting a trans student’s ability to participate in a team they identify with can be harmful mentally and socially.
We oppose HB 68 due to the harm it is likely to cause to transgender youth in Ohio.
