When will Ohio’s trans athlete, healthcare ban take effect?
Watch a previous NBC4 report on H.B. 68 in the video player above. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — An Ohio law set to take effect this month banning gender-affirming care for minors and transgender a… Ohio's House Bill 68, set to take effect on April 23, bans gender-affirming care for minors and restricts trans athletes' participation in women's sports. The bill also restricts trans students from participating in female athletics and revokes the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s trans athlete policy. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the bill's gender affirmation provision, alleging it violates the Ohio Constitution's single-subject rule, given its focus on trans healthcare. The statehouse has voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine's veto of the legislation, arguing that parents should make these decisions rather than the government. The primary sponsor of H.B. 68, Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), argued that the bill was written to be "bulproof when it came to lawsuits."
Published : a month ago by David Rees in Politics Health
Watch a previous NBC4 report on H.B. 68 in the video player above.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — An Ohio law set to take effect this month banning gender-affirming care for minors and transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports could be put on hold if a legal challenge against the measure is successful.
House Bill 68 is scheduled to be enacted in Ohio on April 23, prohibiting children’s hospitals from providing treatment like gender-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy to trans minors. The bill also bars trans students from taking part in female athletics and revokes the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s trans athlete policy, a measure that is allowing seven trans girls to participate in high school sports this school year.
However, the ACLU announced on March 26 it filed a lawsuit against the bill’s gender-affirming care provision and is requesting a preliminary injunction to strike down the ban, according to the complaint filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of two families whose children are at risk of losing access to their healthcare.
“Families are now confronted with the extremely difficult decision of fleeing the state they call home to protect their children or allowing them to go without the care they and their doctors know is right for them,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU.
The ACLU’s suit argues the legislation violates the Ohio Constitution’s single-subject rule, requiring bills to only be about one topic, given the measure addresses trans healthcare and participation in sports. The two provisions had been separate bills before Ohio House legislators combined them in June last year.
H.B. 68 also goes against a constitutional amendment that says no law or rule “shall prohibit the purchase or sale of Health Care or health insurance,” the ACLU said. The amendment led by Ohio Republicans passed in 2011 and aimed to limit the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
The legal challenge came after the Statehouse voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of the legislation. DeWine decided to reject the bill after visiting several children’s hospitals, arguing “parents should make these decisions and not the government.”
Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), the primary sponsor of H.B. 68, said the complaint is “not surprising” and “par for the course,” and argued H.B. 68 was written “to be bulletproof when it came to lawsuits.” Click said he has the “utmost confidence in our attorney general who is capable of defending such commonsense legislation.”
“It is going to be a frivolous lawsuit because there is not constitutional right to sterilize children or to harm or to mutilate them,” Click said. “I believe that science and the law is on our side and we will prevail.”
Gender-affirming care is backed by every major medical association in the nation, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association. To override medical consensus is “government overreach,” the ACLU said and promised it will “reinstate Ohio families’ right to make personal medical decisions with healthcare providers — not politicians.”
Ohio’s children’s hospitals have served about 3,300 individuals throughout the past 10 years whose first appointment at a gender clinic took place when they were under the age of 18, according to the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association president. Of those 3,300 individuals, 7% were prescribed a puberty blocker and 35% were prescribed hormones.
DeWine faced a wave of criticism from notable Republicans who called for the Statehouse to override his veto, including from former President Donald Trump, who wrote in a Truth Social post that DeWine “has fallen to the Radical Left.”
The governor attempted to assuage the backlash by signing an executive order in January to ban Ohio’s medical professionals from performing gender transition surgery on trans youth. DeWine previously said he enacted that order, in part, in anticipation of a lawsuit against H.B. 68.