Ohio Governor Mike DeWine vetoed House Bill 68 on Friday, which would have banned gender-affirming care for minors and transgender athlete participation in girls and women’s sports in high school and college in the state.
Under the proposed bill, it would be illegal for medical health professionals to perform gender reassignment surgery on an individual under 18, prescribe a cross-sex hormone or puberty-blocking drug for a minor individual to assist with gender transition or engage in conduct that aids or abets in these practices. Additionally, the bill would require high school and collegiate sports teams to be designated as male, female or co-ed. House Bill 68 combines and edits the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act and the Save Women’s Sports Act.
DeWine’s veto message stated:
Ultimately, I believe this is about protecting human life. Many parents have told me that their child would be dead today if they had not received the treatment they received from an Ohio children’s hospital. I have also been told, by those that are now grown adults, that but for this care, they would have taken their lives when they were teenagers. What so many of these young people and their families have also told me is that nothing they have faced in life could ever prepare them for this extremely tough journey. Parents are making decisions about the most precious thing in their life, their child, and none of us should underestimate the gravity and the difficulty of those decisions.
Additionally, in response to the veto, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson stated:
Ohio families don’t want politicians meddling in decisions that should be between parents, their kids and their doctors. Instead, parents, schools and doctors should all do everything they can to make all youth, including transgender youth, feel loved and accepted, and politicians should not be making it harder for them to do so. Thank you to Gov. DeWine for listening to the people of his state and making the right decision for young trans Ohioans.
Under Article II Section 16 of the Ohio Constitution, if the governor vetoes a bill, the bill gets sent back to the legislative house that it originated in. That house must vote to repass the bill by a three-fifths vote to send it to the other house to get another three-fifths vote to repass. If the bill gets a three-fifths vote to repass from both houses, the bill becomes law without the governor’s approval. That means this bill will be sent back to the Ohio House of Representatives, since that is where it was introduced.
Other states that have successfully passed bans on gender-affirming care for minors have faced litigation. A federal judge in Alabama declined to pause a challenge to an Alabama law that criminalized gender-affirming care for minors on Tuesday. Additionally, in October, a federal judge allowed Oklahoma’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors to take effect.
