Ohio Governor’s Veto of Gender-Affirming-Care Ban Stokes an Already Hot Issue

 

ACLU tracks 510 bills against LGBTQ community

As if the national divide over LGBTQ and reproductive freedoms needed further deepening, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s December 29th veto of a state bill restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors can only intensify the fracture.

As of this writing, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has tracked 510 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States. The ACLU reports that such legislation has been introduced in every state but New York, Delaware, and Illinois, plus the District of Columbia.

In addition, in its latest annual report published in November, the FBI notes a nearly 14% increase in reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation and a more significant 37% surge in those targeting gender identity, compared to the previous year. In comparison, reported hate crimes involving race, ethnicity, and ancestry dropped slightly.

Last month, Ohio’s Republican-majority legislature passed the “Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act,” outlawing minors from receiving hormone therapy, puberty blocking medication, and gender reassignment surgery.

Gov. Mike DeWine veto of gender-affirming-care ban motivated by suicide prevention

DeWine’s veto was evidently motivated in part by concerns about teen suicide. A 2018 study in the journal Pediatrics found that 50.8% of transgender male teens and 29.9% of transgender female teens attempted suicide.

“Ultimately I believe this is about protecting human life,” DeWine, a Republican, said in a press conference. “Parents have looked me in the eye and told me but for this treatment, their child would be dead.”

The vetoed measure, House Bill 68, would have also prohibited transgender athletes not assigned female at birth from playing on sports teams designated for women at the high school and college levels.

It’s ok to disagree on gender-affirming care

Saying that reasonable people could disagree over the issue of gender-affirming care, DeWine proposed meeting with legislators to modify the legislation in order to alleviate his concerns. In response, conservative groups accused the governor of “a betrayal,” “cowardice,” and yielding to “egregious lies” and “the transgender industry that is preying on so many vulnerable individuals.”

Meanwhile, last month a federal judge criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for spreading false information about childhood genital mutilation. In a hearing over a class-action challenge to Florida’s similar transgender healthcare ban for minors, Judge Robert Hinkle characterized DeSantis’s depictions of transgender genital surgeries as child abuse as seemingly “more than just hyperbole.”

Genital surgeries for minors are rare

An analysis of insurance claims suggests genital surgeries for minors are remarkably rare. The Reuters news service joined health tech company Komodo Health, Inc., to find that hormone therapy was the dominant approach by far for nearly 15,000 minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria over five years. In contrast, insurance claims indicated only 56 genital surgeries had been performed for patients ages 13 to 17 over a three-year period.

Ohio has recently become a high-profile battleground for gender and reproductive rights issues. Late in 2023, some state Republicans attacked passage of a November 7 constitutional amendment guaranteeing Ohio citizens the right to abortion access, vowing to “do everything in [their] power” to nullify the amendment.

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