It’s been a long and winding road for House Bill 68 (HB 68), the Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, from inception to implementation. The legislation sought to ban in Ohio (1) transgender surgeries for minors (also commonly referred to as “gender-affirming care”) and (2) boys from playing in girls sports in middle and high schools.
The Ohio Legislature passed the bill on December 13, 2023 but it was vetoed by Governor DeWine on December 29, 2023. On January 24, 2024, the Ohio Legislature overrode DeWine’s veto and the law looked to be on its way to implementation.
But then the ACLU filed a lawsuit which challenged its constitutionality on March 26, 2024. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Michael Holbrook issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which blocked the implementation of HB 68 entirely until the ACLU’s lawsuit was settled in his courtroom. The case went to trial on July 15th and yesterday, August 6, 2024, Holbrook removed the TRO. This means that HB 68 will now proceed to become the law in Ohio.
“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,” said Bethany McCorkle, Communication Director for Ohio Attorney General David Yost.
Ohio ACU’s Legal Director Freda Levenson added, ”This loss is not just devastating for our brave clients, but for the many transgender youth and their families across the state who require this critical, life-saving health care. 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. We are appealing immediately.”
Research into the scientific basis for the issue leads to conflicting conclusions.
France 24, a French television network, reported that “Sweden decided in February 2022 to halt hormone therapy for minors except in very rare cases, and in December, the National Board of Health and Welfare said mastectomies for teenage girls wanting to transition should be limited to a research setting.”
However, the Advocates for Trans Equality state that “One Dutch study of nearly 7,000 transgender people found that the rate of regret was less than 1% among those who received treatment as adults — and there were no cases of regret among those who received care before the age of 18.”
On the subject of transgender males competing against cisgender women (someone who was assigned female at birth and identifies as a woman), the recent news regarding the Olympic boxing match between Algerian Imane Khalif and Italy’s Angela Carini may have had an enormous impact on public opinion.
“I’ve never been hit so hard in my life,” said Carini after quitting her Olympic boxing match after 46 seconds.
It was the punch felt ‘round the world.
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