A previous lawsuit, brought forward in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas by families of transgender youth, alleged HB 68 violated the Ohio Constitution in four different areas.
Judge Michael Holbrook ruled against those arguments, saying the ban “reasonably limits parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s medical care consistent with the State’s deeply rooted legitimate interest in the regulation of medical profession and medical treatments.”
“Today, Ohio is a safer state for women and children,” said Center for Christian Virtue president Aaron Baer, following Holbrook’s ruling. “The ACLU’s lawsuit has been exposed as absurd and nonsensical, and now our girls won’t be forced to compete against boys in athletics, and children’s hospitals can no longer perform dangerous and sterilizing procedures on kids.”
The Ohio General Assembly “determined the care regulated is experimental,” Holbrook said, citing HB 68 in his ruling, which said the risks “far outweigh any benefit at this stage of clinical study.”
Medical associations like the Ohio State Medical Association have said gender-affirming care is evidence-based. More than 2,000 scientific studies have examined aspects of gender-affirming care since 1975, according to the Endocrine Society, including more than 260 studies cited in the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guideline.
As with other analyses the court made, “recourse for those who are dissatisfied with the General Assembly’s determinations must be exercised through their vote as opposed to the judicial system,” Holbrook said.
“The Attorney General applauds the trial court’s decision,” said Bethany McCorkle, the Ohio Attorney General’s communications director, in a statement following Holbrook’s ruling. “This case has always been about the legislature’s authority to enact a law to protect our children from making irreversible medical and surgical decisions about their bodies.”
“The law doesn’t say ‘no’ forever; it simply says ‘not now’ while the child is still growing,” McCorkle said.
The ACLU of Ohio planned to appeal immediately, said Freda Levenson, legal director at the ACLU of Ohio.
“While this decision by the court is a genuine setback, it is not the end of the road in our fight to secure the constitutional rights of transgender youth, as well as all Ohioans’ right to bodily autonomy,” Levenson said.
The ACLU of Ohio and the law firm Goodwin filed a motion in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for an injunction to halt the enforcement of House Bill 68 pending appeal.
If the court doesn’t halt HB 68 from going into effect, the families of 12-year-olds Grace Goe and Madeline Moe will have to travel or move out of state or forgo gender-affirming health care, the ACLU of Ohio said.
“We are urging the appeals court to block House Bill 68 and return the status quo in Ohio – that trans youth, with support from their parents and physicians, be permitted to continue to access critically important, sometimes life-saving, medical care,” attorneys representing the families said.
“As we press forward with our appeal from the trial court’s erroneous decision, our clients’ lives go on; these youths cannot wait until the resolution of this appeal to access the healthcare they need now.”
With the passage of H.B. 68, Ohio became the 23rd state in the country to ban gender-affirming care for minors.
It was passed by the Ohio General Assembly and subsequently vetoed by Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who noted his belief that gender-affirming care did indeed save lives, and said that it’s a practice that needs more empirical data. Ultimately, he concluded that it is a case-by-case decision that should be left to the minor, their parents, and their medical team.
However, nearly all Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly disagreed with the governor’s decision and swiftly overrode his veto with a 3/5 super majority in both chambers. Both House and Senate Republicans said they believe gender-affirming care is a dangerous practice and cast doubts on whether or not minors can grant informed consent on such a critical decision.
