In the medium term, this hateful bill is going to impose an ocean of hurt on those Ohioans and their families. HB 68 bans gender-affirming treatment for people younger than age 18.
(Meanwhile, laudable though DeWine’s veto was, a coordinate executive order will likely make it harder, or at least more cumbersome, for transitioning Ohioans over age 18 to secure appropriate care.)
All 65 of the Ohio House Republicans present for the roll-call voted to override DeWine’s veto. (Rep. Jamie Callender, a Concord Republican, was absent.) The fact that not a single House Republican had the guts to vote “no” on the veto override speaks volumes about GOP representatives.
True, as DeWine and others have noted, combining the ban on transitional care for minors with a ban on transsexual women competing in women’s sports – a solution in search of a problem – likely helped stoke House GOP unanimity on the veto override, even though an infinitesimally tiny number of transsexual women compete in athletics in Ohio. But hey, as Ronald Reagan once said in a famous slip of the tongue, facts are stupid things.
Meanwhile, here’s what seems to be the operating philosophy of today’s General Assembly: At first sight of a small, besieged minority, reach for a ball-peen hammer and pound away. That’s the Statehouse now. And it’s sickening.
In the end, as Canute demonstrated with the tide, there’s no stopping transgender transitions; it’s only a question of whether the General Assembly will assure they’re medically safe – or not: And House Bill 68, for purely rabble-rousing reasons, means medical- and mental health services will be restricted for young trans Ohioans. And burnishes Ohio’s reputation for beating on sexual minorities.
During the first House speakership of Perry County Republican Larry Householder (2001 through 2004), first Ohio’s House, then the House and state Senate, passed bills banning recognition of same-sex marriage in Ohio, a measure Republican then-Gov. Bob Taft, to his discredit, signed early in 2004.
Later in 2004, Ohio voters amended the state constitution to also ban same-sex marriage. Then, just over ten years later, in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which originated in Ohio, overthrew the ban.
It’s inevitable that in time, though not soon enough for the young Ohioans struggling today with gender identity, the courts will also overthrow HB 68: It unconstitutionally prevents a minority group from obtaining appropriate medical care.
By that time, the Statehouse’s bio-ethics geniuses will no doubt have found new worlds to conquer. What for example will be the reaction of the legislature’s rocket-scientists when human cloning breaks the surface in Ohio – as inevitably it will?
If our term-limited legislature were capable of taking a longer view of the state’s human ecology, instead of scouting for its next post-Statehouse jobs, the legal implications of human cloning and other bioscience developments would at least merit a study commission.
But no: The General Assembly’s Republican majority goes after young Ohioans, and their families, and medical advisers, for seeking to establish a person’s gender identity. House Bill 68, like the legislature that will pass it over Mike DeWine’s veto, looks backward. And Ohio does too much of that already.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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