Aiexpress – Ohio has banned gender-affirming care for minors and limited transgender women’s and girls’ participation on sports teams, leaving families of transgender children perplexed about how to best care for them.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted Wednesday to overturn GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto. The new law prohibits gender-affirming operations and hormone therapy, and it limits mental health care for transgender people under the age of 18. The legislation also prohibits transgender girls and women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports at the K–12 and university levels.
Officials expect the law to go into force in about 90 days. The Republican-majority House voted to override the veto earlier this month.
Two of Kat Scaglione’s three children are transgender, and the Chagrin Falls artist is upset but not surprised by the new legislation. Her 14-year-old daughter Amity is already receiving mental health services and medication, and she would be able to continue her treatment under the law’s grandfather clause, but she would be unable to seek additional treatments, such as hormone therapies, and would have to travel out of state to advance in her gender-affirming care.
Scaglione and her partner, Matt, are even considering moving their family out of state, despite just purchasing a home in a safer school district and community for Amity and her 10-year-old transgender sister, Lexi. They don’t feel welcome in Ohio, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
“Even as we’ve settled in and have good things right now, we’re constantly looking over our shoulders, waiting for something to change to the point where we have to get out now,” he said. “It’s been hard to move somewhere and try to make it home while you’re constantly feeling like at any moment you may have to flee.”
DeWine said Wednesday that he vetoed the law, much to the dismay of his party, in order to protect parents and children from government overreach in medical decisions. However, in the first week of January, he signed an executive order prohibiting gender-affirming surgery for people under the age of 18, despite medical specialists’ claims that such procedures do not occur in the state.
He also proposed administrative guidelines for transgender adults as well as children, which has sparked outrage among Democrats and LGBTQ+ groups who were previously optimistic about his veto.
Sen. Kristina Roegner, a Republican from Summit County, erroneously claimed on the Senate floor that there is no such thing as gender-affirming care or a gender spectrum, labeling it a “fool’s errand.”
Her words elicited boos and loud protests from LGBTQ+ advocates, who were all closely monitored by Statehouse security.
One supporter was hauled out of the Senate chamber after singing that Jesus loves transgender children.
At least 22 states have already passed legislation restricting or prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender adolescents, and many of those jurisdictions are facing challenges. Courts have issued mixed decisions. The nation’s first statute, passed in Arkansas, was overturned by a federal judge, who ruled that the ban on care violated transgender youth and families’ due process rights.
Major medical organizations advise the treatment, which has been available in the United States for more than a decade.
At least 20 states have adopted some form of blanket ban on transgender athletes competing on K-12 and collegiate sports teams statewide, but a Biden administration proposal to prohibit such outright bans is due to be completed this year after several delays and significant opposition. As proposed, the rule would state that sweeping bans would violate Title IX, the landmark gender equity statute passed in 1972.
Maria Bruno, public policy director for Equality Ohio, a statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, stated that they will explore all legal and legislative measures to safeguard transgender citizens and their families.
“To see partisan politics overriding the both logical and fair and compassionate outcome is a real shame,” she went on to say.
