Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine made a campaign stop at The Mandalay function center in Moraine, Ohio, on November 4, 2022.
Republican Governor Mike DeWine has been criticized by Christian public policy organizations for vetoing legislation that would have prohibited sex change procedures and hormonal treatments for children with gender dysphoria and would have prevented biological men from competing in women’s sports events.
Substitute House Bill (HB68), which included the Save Women’s Sports Act and the SAFE (Saving Adolescents From Experimentation) Act, was vetoed by DeWine during a media briefing at the end of the year on Thursday.
“These difficult decisions should not be made by the government,” DeWine argued. “They should not be made by the state of Ohio. They should be made by the families who raised that child, who witnessed their child in pain, and who are constantly concerned about their children.”
DeWine declared that he would move forward with his administrative plan to outlaw transgender clinics for children under the age of 18, as well as his push for stricter oversight and regulation of such interventions in both children and adults.
In contrast to the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, and other civil rights organizations that praised the veto, Christian conservative organizations like the Center for Christian Virtue referred to DeWine’s veto as a “heartless act.”
Critics hope that the Ohio General Assembly, which is dominated by Republicans, will be able to override the governor’s veto with a three-fifths majority vote.
Aaron Baer, President of the Center for Christian Virtue, said, “Mike DeWine has failed Ohio, and it’s our children who are going to pay the price.” “If the General Assembly does not override his veto, when we look back a generation at the thousands of children who have been sterilized and harmed by risky and experimental transgender medical techniques, we will know that those in power did nothing to stop it.”
DeWine’s proposals, according to Baer, “are toothless” because, in addition to allowing treatments for children to continue, they are also “mere administrative requests that can be easily repealed by the next Governor.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has defended female athletes in court cases against laws allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports, accused DeWine of “betraying” Ohioans with his veto of HB68.
“After vetoing the legislation, Gov. DeWine disregarded the mounting body of evidence regarding the harm that these medications and therapies cause to children’s minds and bodies,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Sharp. “And he disregarded the harm that policies that allow men to compete on women’s teams do to female athletes who are losing podium spots and having their athletic opportunities taken away.”
Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project, accused DeWine of “succumbing to cowardice” and “caving in to the transgender industry that is preying on so many vulnerable individuals.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the national pro-LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said DeWine made “the right decision for young transgender Ohioans.”
“Ohio families don’t want politicians meddling in decisions that should be between parents, their children, and their doctors,” Robinson said. “Politicians shouldn’t make it harder for transgender children to feel loved and accepted; instead, families, schools, and doctors should all do everything in their power to do so.”
In November, Ohioans passed a measure that provided state constitutional protections for abortion rights. Some analysts believe this was part of the national reaction in some blue and purple states against the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
