COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Senate voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine's veto on legislation that would ban gender-affirming care from transgender youth and prohibit trans students from participating in athletics on teams that align with their identity.
The override passed the Senate with a vote of 24 yays to 8 nays. Only one Republican senator, Northeast Ohioan Nathan Manning, voted against House Bill 68.
The veto on the bill banning gender-affirming care has been overrode.
— Morgan Trau (@MorganTrau) January 24, 2024
Passed on party lines, except for Republican Sen. Nathan Manning, who voted against it.
The ban goes into effect in 90 days.@WEWS @WCPO @OhioCapJournal pic.twitter.com/4cjJU4ZEyf
The law will now prohibit gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary youth, including hormone blockers, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), medical or surgical procedures and some mental health services. In addition to banning gender-affirming care for trans children, it will prohibit trans athletes from taking part in women's sports.
The Senate met at 1:30 p.m., with senators in favor and opposed to the override giving the last testimony before the vote.
Protests from the LGBTQ+ community and their allies took place outside the Statehouse at 12:30 p.m.
News 5 has extensively covered this legislation for years. Click or tap here to find more stories.
Transgender rights advocates braved the rain trying to show Ohio Republicans that gender-affirming care is needed.
"It's just important to me because it's improved my quality of life so significantly; a lot is riding on this," transgender teen Ruby said. "I've got career aspirations — I can't do that if I'm dead in the ground."
Ruby wouldn't be alive if he didn't have access to this type of healthcare, he said.
"The evidence and the testimony that came to the committee are that the chemical changes that happen also are a problem," Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said.
Click or tap here to learn more about the bill.
DeWine and doctors report there is no substantiated evidence that hormone blockers cause any major harm. Still, Huffman believes families shouldn’t make decisions before the child knows who they are.
"I feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel," Ruby said.
One of the main supporters of the bill is State Sen. Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson), who gave a speech on the floor.
"Despite what the liberals say, gender is not assigned at birth, but rather from the moment of conception, you are either male or you are female,” Roegner said. "There is no such thing as gender-affirming care — you can’t affirm something that doesn’t exist."
Doctors have continuously testified at the Statehouse that this logic is inaccurate — considering science shows that intersex people exist and that transgender people are real.
"We are opposed to H.B. 68 because it uses false information to strip away parental rights and impose nonscientific based restrictions on pediatric health care specialists," Nick Lashutka, the president of the Ohio Children's Hospital Association, testified.
H.B. 68 will now go into effect in 90 days, although the ACLU is evaluating all options — including filing a lawsuit.
When DeWine vetoed the bill last month, he said: “Were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is medically best for a child better than the two people who love the child the most - the parents. I cannot sign this bill as it was currently written and just a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill.”
A week after the veto, DeWine issued an executive order prohibiting gender-affirming surgeries on minors in Ohio and set forth draft administrative rules around gender-affirming care in minors and adults, which would restrict any gender-affirming care for minors in Ohio.
"This will ensure surgeries of this type on minors can ever happen in Ohio," DeWine said. "I know that is one of the concerns that has been expressed. I never disagreed with that. If we look at what evidence there is, there's very little that that is occurring, but let's make sure. That's what this does."
He has never heard of a trans minor getting gender-affirming surgery in the state, and no one brought it up to him during his information-gathering period with hospitals and families, he added.
H.B. 68 was introduced by state Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery). Lawmakers in favor of the bill argued that trans teens don’t know what they really want, and their parents and doctors are pressured to approve of this healthcare.
About five trans student-athletes are competing in middle and high school in the state. None have won any awards for sports.
RELATED: Ohio House overrides governor's veto of bill banning gender-affirming care for trans youth
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