Ohio Judge Halts Anti-transgender Healthcare Bill Amid Legal Battle

Columbus, Ohio (WCMH) — A Franklin County judge ruled Tuesday that an Ohio law prohibiting gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents would not take effect as planned next week while a legal challenge is pending.

On Tuesday, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Michael Holbrook issued a two-week temporary restraining order blocking House Bill 68. The measure, which was slated to go into effect on April 24, would bar Ohio’s children’s hospitals from delivering hormone therapy to transgender youngsters. Tuesday’s verdict comes after the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the proposal in March on behalf of two families whose children are at risk of losing access to 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, when the suit was filed.

The ACLU claims the proposal violates the Ohio Constitution’s single-subject rule, which requires bills to be about only one topic because it addresses transgender healthcare and prohibits transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. The two clauses were independent legislation until Ohio House legislators joined them in June of last year.

H.B. 68 also violates a constitutional amendment that states that no legislation or rule “shall prohibit the purchase or sale of health care or health insurance,” according to the ACLU. The Ohio Republican-led amendment, passed in 2011, sought to minimize the consequences of the Affordable Care Act.

The legal issue arose after the Statehouse chose to override Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of the law. After visiting numerous children’s hospitals, DeWine chose to oppose the bill, claiming that “parents should make these decisions and not the government.”

Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), the principal sponsor of H.B. 68, said the complaint is “not surprising” and “par for the course,” arguing that the bill was crafted “to be bulletproof when it came to lawsuits.” Mr. Click stated that 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 no constitutional right to sterilize children or to harm or to mutilate them,” Click told the court. “I believe that science and the law is on our side and we will prevail.”

Every major medical association in the country supports gender-affirming care, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association. Overriding medical consensus is “government overreach,” according to the ACLU, which promises to “reinstate Ohio families’ right to make personal medical decisions with healthcare providers — not politicians.”

According to the president of the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, over the last decade, Ohio’s children’s hospitals have serviced about 3,300 people who had their first appointment at a gender clinic when they were under the age of 18. Of the 3,300 people, 7% were given a puberty blocker, whereas 35% were given hormones.