BY MEGAN HENRY
Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens is confident they have the necessary votes to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a controversial bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“As long as we don’t have a snowstorm, we’ll be voting,” Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, told reporters Tuesday. “It’s ready to be in the law as far as our members are concerned.”
The House is coming back from winter break early on Wednesday in an attempt to override DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68, which would ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care — including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. It would also prevent transgender athletes from playing women’s sports. State Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, is the sponsor of HB 68.
A three-fifths vote of the members of the House and Senate is necessary to override the governor’s veto – meaning 59 representatives and 20 senators.
The numbers for an override are there based on previous votes. HB 68 passed in December with 24 votes in the Senate and 62 votes in the House. The bill originally passed the House with 64 votes in June.
If the House votes to override the bill, it heads over to the Senate. If both chambers pass the override measure, HB 68 would go into effect 90 days after the final vote. The Senate is in session Jan. 24.
“If (HB 68) where to go into law, it would be the most extreme example of covert government overreach imaginable,” said Minna Zelch, the mother of a transgender daughter. “This legislation is extraordinarily dehumanizing.”
Minna’s 19-year-old daughter Ember has been on female hormones for three and a half years and told her mom there’s a chance she wouldn’t be alive right now if it weren’t for gender-affirming care.
“She says her self-esteem was so incredibly low that she had no hope for her future,” Minna said.
While many families of transgender children were relieved DeWine vetoed HB 68, they are worried the lawmakers could overturn the bill.
“I felt like I could breathe, for a few days for the first time in months, if not years,” Minna said.
She wants lawmakers who want to override the governor’s veto would take a page out of DeWine’s book and talk transgender Ohioans.
“I wish they would all just have an honest conversation with one transgender child in this state, and then see if they still believe that this legislation is a good idea,” Zelch said.
Would the proposed law hold up in court?
If the lawmakers were to override the veto, the question still remains of whether the bill would hold up in court.
“What we’ve worked on, frankly, in the House is to make sure that it can stand up to the legal challenges that inevitably will come,” Stephens said. “But that’s for the other branch of government to decide.”
Twenty-two other states have passed a law that blocks gender affirming care, according to the Human Rights Campaign. But most of the bans have faced legal challenges.
Federal appeals judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tennessee and Kentucky can continue banning gender-affirming care for trans youth while legal challenges agains state laws continue. The 6th Circuit has jurisdiction over Ohio.
DeWine’s executive order
The House’s vote to override HB 68 comes on the heels of DeWine’s executive order that bans hospitals and ambulatory surgical facilities from performing gender transition surgeries on minors.
DeWine also proposed draft administrative rules to start collecting non-identifying data of gender dysphoria cases and crack down on “fly-by-night” clinics that don’t provide enough mental health counseling.
“The rules are incredibly confusing,” Zelch said. “They completely contradict each other. … They’re putting standards that a lot of these providers cannot reach. The rules are confusing on purpose.”
Trans Allies of Ohio said this would add more restrictions to transgender health care.
“These draft rules … are an unnecessary intrusion into private medical decisions, creating untenable, discriminatory barriers to care for transgender individuals that is currently safe and effective,” Trans Allies of Ohio said in a statement. “Ohio’s hospitals, clinics, and providers operate under a rigorous model of care that ensures complex diagnoses and treatments are tailored to the needs of each individual.”
Kaleidoscope Youth Center, an Columbus-based organization that supports LGBTQIA+ youth, expressed their disappointment in the executive order.
“This moment is unfolding as a political game being played with the health and well-being of transgender lives,” Kaleidoscope said in a statement. “Politicians should not be the arbitrators of personal medical needs and care.The executive order is unnecessary, which was acknowledged by the Governor himself.”
Equality Ohio also has concerns over the new rules that are being proposed.
“As drafted, the proposed rules fundamentally change how Ohio medical systems operate and disrupt care for existing patients, including adults, making the immediate impact much more broadly felt than HB68,” Equality Ohio said in a statement.
