Ohio Governor Mike DeWine used his veto power on Friday, December 29, blocking the passage of a controversial bill that would have restricted the participation of transgender girls on school sports teams as well as transition-related treatment for minors.
Following his veto, DeWine held a news conference on Friday where he said that the parents and doctors of a minor should make the "gut-wrenching" choice as to whether or not the kid should have the option of gender-affirming treatment rather than the government or the state of Ohio.
After weeks of heated discussion and lobbying, DeWine has decided to reject the law.
According to what DeWine told The Associated Press, before he vetoed the measure, he went to three children's hospitals in Ohio to have a better understanding of transition-related care and to talk to families who had positive and negative experiences with it.
He stated, "We're dealing with children who are going through a challenging time, families that are going through a challenging time. I want, the best I can, to get it right."
With a three-fifths majority vote, the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly could get around the governor's veto.
Transition Care for Minors
For weeks prior to this decision, there has been intense discussion and lobbying over the law. According to WCMH-TV, Republican State Representative Gary Click said earlier this month that kids lack the capacity to provide the educated consent required to make such highly dangerous and life-altering choices about their health care.
Some 290 individuals, including some doctors, registered to testify against the bill during a hearing earlier this month.
Retired physician Dr. Christopher Bolling, who represented the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News that the legislation only applies to a tiny subset of teenagers. Before retiring last year, Bolling saw hundreds of families throughout his more than 30 years of work. Only those in the age range of 20 to 30 who had ongoing gender dysphoria were the ones he dealt with, he added.
Some who are in favor of limiting access to transition care for minors point to the examples set by European nations. But Bolling pointed out that none of those nations have outright forbidden it. Rather, they are investigating it, as he said all physicians do with any kind of treatment.
He did say that medical professionals may differ on how to treat transgender children but that this is nothing new in the field of gender-affirming medicine.
Ban on Transgender School Athletes
The law also aimed to limit the involvement of transgender student-athletes in school sports. Many proponents testified in support of it last month.
Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who competed against transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, stated: "Across the country and across various sports, female athletes are losing not only titles and awards to males but also roster spots and opportunities to compete."
In 2021, when The Associated Press contacted several state legislators who had backed transgender athletes' bans, they discovered that it had caused problems on rare occasions for the hundreds of thousands of American students who participated in sports events.
