By: Sarah Donaldson | Statehouse News Bureau
About a dozen Ohioans testified on Monday night against some of the country’s proposed rules for conversion therapies and various gender-affirming care for transgender children and teens that were proposed at Gov. Mike DeWine’s request.
Physicians and other healthcare providers may only treat transgender people in agreement with an integrated care team of doctors and psychologists under the proposed rule changes from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. In February, the department revised the regulations to clarify that they only apply to minors and expand the scope of the roles that professionals can play in that treatment team.
14 social workers and community advocates at the hearing claimed that the revisions didn’t have any impact on their opinions. Some pleaded for more adjustments, while some pleaded for them to be completely withdrawn.
Equality Ohio Policy Fellow Cam Ogden said she is also concerned about the latest edition despite the fact that she feels the department heard her and others and made adjustments.
After the hearing, Ogden claimed that the Department of Health and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services are currently treating transgender people like they are a threat to public health. “That’s what these rules seem like they’re meant to address. We don’t need to be addressed in that way because transgender people aren’t a public health threat.”
Equitas Health only treats people who are 18 and older, but Oliver Licking, a part of the physical matters group, testified against the regulations because he claimed that transgender youth in Ohio will eventually turn into their adult patients.
Licking is wary of even the revisions. “It’s like, ‘Look, we’re trying to work with the community, we’re not actually trying to restrict care,'” he said after the hearing.
[Trans Allies of Ohio sign at the Ohio Statehouse] Sarah Donaldson | Statehouse News Bureau]OMHAS and ODH regulations would be added to the new trans law.
The regulations are entirely independent of House Bill 68, which forbids trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care and from competing in girls’ athletics.
HB 68 also imposes penalties for those who prescribe hormones and puberty blockers to minors in addition to performing surgeries. Additionally, the bill allows athletes to file civil lawsuits against any institution that goes against the law and requires that K-12 and collegiate teams in Ohio be “single sex.”
In late December 2023, DeWine requested that these administrative draft rules be submitted. But by the end of January, the GOP-majority legislature overrode that veto. HB 68 will take effect in a little more than a month, barring litigation.
In January, the ACLU of Ohio announced that it would file a lawsuit against HB 68. Although it has yet to file a lawsuit, lobbyist Sean McCann said it will before the bill’s effective date.
After the hearing, McCann stated that “our legal team is continuing to kind of do their due diligence that always goes into the work of building the lawsuit.”
The Ohio Department of Health is considering draft regulations that govern the collection of transgender Ohioans’ data, which have received similar backlash from advocates.
