Judge blocks Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors

An Ohio judge has issued a two-week block against the state’s ban on gender-affirming care, which was set to go into effect on April 24. During that two-week block, a state court will hear a motion for a longer-term block requested by the families of two transgender children whom the ban would harm. The state’s attorney general has implied that he will appeal the ruling.

The block, issued by Judge Michael Holbrook of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, didn’t address the law’s discriminatory focus on gender. Rather, Judge Holbrook said the ban likely violated a state constitutional provision known as the “single subject rule,” which forbids bills from covering more than one subject. Ohio’s law, H.B. 68, banned gender-affirming care for minors as well as trans girls from playing on sports teams matching their gender identity.

Related:

Dozens of families flee Ohio after anti-trans health care ban passes

The GOP is “literally killing our children,” one Democrat said, blasting the new legislation.

“It is not lost upon this Court that the General Assembly was unable to pass the [Saving Ohio Adolescents from Experimentation] portion of the Act separately, and it was only upon logrolling in the Saving Women’s Sports provisions that it was able to pass,” Holbrook wrote. “Logrolling,” in this instance, refers to putting multiple, unrelated laws into a single bill.

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Ohio’s law prohibits healthcare providers from doing anything that “aids or abets” minors in accessing gender-affirming medical care. The law also prohibits mental health professionals from diagnosing any child with gender dysphoria without also considering other concurrent mental health conditions, like “depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and potential physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse and other possible trauma,” Cleveland.com reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued on behalf of two families with trans kids, alleging that the law violates both the “single subject” rule and the Ohio constitution’s equal protection clause, which ensures that individuals will be treated the same under the law, regardless of sex or gender.

Holbrook wrote, “There is little doubt as to the irreparable nature of the actual physical injury to plaintiffs upon the enforcement of the Act.”

Freda Levenson of the ACLU of Ohio, celebrated the judge’s Tuesday ruling, according to Reuters. “We are thrilled and relieved that Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare has been halted and that transgender youth can continue, for the near term at least, to access medically necessary healthcare,” she wrote.

However, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said he was “confident” the law would ultimately be upheld, adding, “This is just the first page of the book. We will fight vigorously to defend this properly enacted statute, which protects our children from irrevocable adult decisions.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who vetoed the law but had his veto overridden by his state’s Republican-led legislature said, “Everybody knew that this would go to court eventually… whatever the decision the local judge makes, it will go up to the court of appeals and I’m sure it will go from there to the Ohio Supreme Court,” WBNS reported.

The law made Ohio the 24th state to ban trans girls and women from playing school sports as their gender and the 23rd to ban trans minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care. Courts have alternately blocked some of these laws from going into effect in other states.