A few Ohioans testified on Monday morning against some of the country’s proposed transition treatments and other gender-affirming care for minors and teens, per Mike DeWine’s ask.
Physicians and other health care providers may only make their own arrangements with an integrated care group of doctors and psychologists under the proposed password 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 Some pleaded for more adjustments, while another pleaded for them to be completely withdrawn.
Cam Ogden, a policy fellow for justice in Ohio, said she still worries about the latest edition despite the fact that she believes the agency 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 trans people like they are a public health threat. “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.”
Oliver Licking, a part of the external affairs group, testified against the laws because he claimed that transgender children in Ohio will eventually turn into their adult sufferers. Equitas Health only treats individuals who are 18 and older.
Licking is afraid of even the adjustments. “It’s like, ‘Look, we’re trying to work with the group, we’re not really trying to restrict treatment,'” he said after the hearing.
OMAS, ODH guidelines would be in addition to new laws
The laws are inseparably linked to House Bill 68, which forbids trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care and from competing in female sports.
HB 68 also imposes penalties for those who prescribe hormone and puberty blockers to adolescents in addition to performing surgeries. Additionally, the law allows players to file civil lawsuits against any organization that goes against the law and orders that K-12 and collegiate teams in Ohio be “single-sex.”
In late December 2023, DeWine requested that these administrative draft laws be submitted. But by the end of January, the GOP-led legislature overrode that veto. HB 68 is taking effect in a little more than a month, barring dispute.
The ACLU of Ohio announced in January 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 often goes into the work of building the lawsuit.”
The Ohio Department of Health is considering draft regulations that govern the collection of trans Ohioans’ files, which have received similar backlash from activists.
