CINCINNATI — Off Montgomery Road in Silverton sits the home of Transform Cincy, a local group that works with transgender and gender non-conforming youth.
The group offers kids free clothes and shoes and also provides support.
Tristan Vaught is the co-founder of Transform Cincy. Vaught described the past year for the transgender community as "chaotic" and "terrifying."
"I wake up every morning and I'm like 'Do I still have a job at the University? Do I still have funding?'" Vaught said.
That's due to what Vaught called targeted legislation against the transgender community.
"I have a lot of families thinking of moving," Vaught said. "Getting out of Ohio and getting into a safer state."
However, amid all of the unknown has come some positive news for Vaught.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of appellate judges ruled Ohio's ban on gender-affirming care for minors is unconstitutional and must be permanently blocked from being enforced. The law also banned trans women and girls from participating in female sports.
Hear more about why the decision to block the ban was made:
"It's a big win," Vaught said.
The state's 10th District Court of Appeals reversed a lower court judge's decision last summer to allow the law to go into effect after finding it “reasonably limits parents' rights.” The law bans counseling, gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for minors, unless they are already receiving such therapies and a doctor deems it risky to stop.
The litigation was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio and the global law firm Goodwin, who argued the law not only denies health care to transgender children and teens, but specifically discriminates against them accessing it.
The appellate court agreed, in a 2-1 majority opinion written by Judge Carly Edelstein, and cited a number of flaws in the lower court's reasoning.
She said that the Ohio law does not outlaw identical drugs when they're used for other reasons, only when they're used for gender transitioning, which makes it discriminatory. She also said that a prescription ban is not a reasonable exercise of the state's police power when it is weighed against the rights of parents to care for their children.
Addressing proponents' arguments that minors are not in a position to understand the long-term impacts such procedures could have on their lives, the judge said that, while they may not be, their parents are.
“Thus, in considering whether the H.B. 68 ban is reasonable, it is necessary to keep in mind that the law recognizes the maturity, experience, and capacity of parents to make difficult judgments and act in their children’s best interest,” she wrote.
"Most everyone should agree that parents should have the right to deal with the health care of their own children in how they deem fit," Vaught said. "It's not affecting anyone else."
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the law in December 2023, after touring the state to visit children’s hospitals and talking to families of children with gender dysphoria. He cast his action as thoughtful, limited and “pro-life” — citing the suicide risks associated with minors who don't get proper treatment for gender dysphoria.
Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a candidate to succeed DeWine next year who serves as the Legislature's lawyer, quickly released a statement saying that he will appeal Tuesday's ruling.
“This is a no-brainer — we are appealing that decision and will seek an immediate stay," he said. “There is no way I’ll stop fighting to protect these unprotected children.”
Vaught said that could create more anxiety for transgender kids.
"Think about a teenager," Vaught said "They already feel a lot of those things, and to have these attacks on them, it's kind of an added piece."
Vaught said they wants lawmakers to think of the impact those decisions have on children's mental health.
"They're kids who are living their lives and the adults have made it political," Vaught said.
