BY: MEGAN HENRY – Ohio Capital Journal

The Ohio Senate voted to override two of Gov. Mike DeWine’s vetoes Wednesday — one on a bill blocking gender-affirming care for trans youth and the other blocking cities from banning flavored tobacco sales. Both laws are now set to take effect at the end of April.

The Senate voted 24-8 to override DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68, which blocks gender-affirming care for trans youth and prevents transgender athletes from playing women’s sports. The bill prohibits transgender youth from starting hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

“I think parents should make those decisions and not the government,” DeWine said before the vote Wednesday.

The Senate also voted 24-8 to override DeWine’s veto of a provision that would prevent cities from banning flavored tobacco sales. A flavored tobacco ban took effect in Columbus earlier this month after Columbus City Council voted to stop the sale of flavored tobacco products in December 2022.

“It will be a win for big tobacco and it will be a loss for Ohio,” DeWine said before the vote Wednesday.

A three-fifths majority vote from the members of the House and Senate is necessary to override the governor’s veto. The Ohio House voted to override HB 68 earlier this month and voted to override the flavored tobacco ban in December. State Sen. Nathan Manning of North Ridgeville was the only Republican to vote against overriding the Republican governor on the gender-affirming care ban, and state Sen. Louis Blessing of Colerain Township was the sole Republican to vote against overriding DeWine on the tobacco law.

The laws are set to go into effect 90 days after they are delivered to the Secretary of State’s office, meaning it would likely take effect April 23.

House Bill 68

Ohio Senators discussed House Bill 68 for about an hour before taking a vote. Democrats said they celebrated DeWine’s veto while Republicans expressed their disappointment in last month’s veto.

“There are men and there are women and there are boys and there are girls and they are different,” said State Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson.

“Gender is not fluid. There is no such thing as a gender spectrum,” she claimed.

State Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, said this bill becoming law will lead to loss of life.

“Politicians have no business banning evidence-based, life-saving medical care – especially when it is endorsed by every major medical and mental health association,”said Ohio Senate Democratic Leader Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood.

“We should listen to parents, providers and patients, not willfully and purposely pass harmful legislation that will add to the mass exodus of individuals from the state of Ohio,” Antonio said.

A protester was removed from the Senate chamber after she interrupted Roegner.

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, LGBTQIA,” she screamed. “Jesus would be here on their side today. We need to support them.”

HB 68 has a grandfather clause that would allow doctors who already started treatment on patients to continue.

Gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization in the United States. Children’s hospitals across Ohio, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, and the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians all oppose HB 68. No Ohio children’s hospital performs gender-affirming surgery on patients under 18 currently.

DeWine said his veto of HB 68 was “about protecting human life.”

“These are gut-wrenching decisions that should be made by parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them,”  he said during a press conference on Dec. 29.

It’s likely this new law will end up in court.

Twenty-two other states have passed a law that bans gender affirming care for transgender youth, but most have faced legal challenges, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Federal appeals judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tennessee and Kentucky can continue banning gender-affirming care for trans youth while legal challenges against state laws continue. The 6th Circuit has jurisdiction over Ohio.

Before the Senate voted to override his veto, DeWine said he does not plan to pursue legal against HB 68.

“The legislature has the constitutional right to override anything, any bill that I sign, or any or any bill that I veto,” DeWine said. “That’s part of our system. And I respect our system. It doesn’t mean I like the vote, but I respect our system.”

Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, told reporters Wednesday he believes HB 68 will hold up in court.

“I do think that it’ll pass constitutional scrutiny,” he said.

State Rep. Gary Click

The bill’s author state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, has denied that HB 68 has any religious backing, but Click can be heard saying in a recorded sermon from 2018 that trans people break from God’s plan for the family.

“You’re not born that way,” Click says about trans people during the sermon. “God’s not going to curse you in the wrong body. He’s not going to curse you with desires that cannot be adequately and appropriately and biologically fulfilled correctly.”

Click is a pastor at Fremont Baptist Church and celebrated Wednesday’s Senate vote.

“The SAFE Act and Save Women’s Sports Act are the civil rights issues of our day, ensuring that children have the right to grow up intact and that women are no longer subject to men invading their spaces,” he said in a statement.

Gender-affirming care

Gender-affirming care can “include any single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioral or medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity,” according to the World Health Organization.

It typically consists of four general practices: social affirmation, puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Population Affairs.

Puberty blockers use hormones to pause puberty development and are reversible.

Hormone therapy helps align a person’s body with their gender identity by giving testosterone hormones to those who were assigned female at birth and giving estrogen hormones to those who were assigned male at birth. This is partially reversible.

A 2022 study published in JAMA Network Open found access to hormones and puberty blockers for young people ages 13-20 was associated with a 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depression and a 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts compared to youths who didn’t get these medications.

Transgender athletes

House Bill 6, which prevents trans athletes from playing Ohio women’s sports, was rolled into HB 68 during the summer.

“It’s too bad that House Bill 68 and House Bill 6 were combined into one piece of legislation because the only commonality these two pieces of legislation have is they both target the same small portion of transgender kids,” said State Senator Kent Smith, D-Euclid.

Twenty-three states have passed similar laws in regards to transgender athletes since 2020, according to ESPN.

Currently, if a trans girl wants to play on a team with cis girls in Ohio, she must go through hormone treatments for at least one year or show no physical or  physiological advantages, according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

There were only six transgender high school female student athletes in Ohio, the Capital Journal previously reported in the spring.

Reactions to HB 68 override

​​Minna Zelch, the mother of a 19-year-old transgender daughter, said Wednesday’s Senate vote was completely devastating.

“They think that they can erase transgender people with this legislation and the other legislation they’re passing, but our kids will still be trans and trans people will still be trans no matter what they do,” Zelch said. “And we’re here to fight and continue fighting.”

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said the override of HB 68 will harm innocent children.

“Despite the fact that they have no medical training, these politicians believe they know better than parents and transgender youth seeking health care. It’s shameful,” Robinson said in a statement.

Dara Adkison, board secretary of TransOhio, said trans youth deserve better.

“Our community is strong and resilient in ways that hateful legislators can not comprehend, and trans Ohioans across the state cannot and will not be legislated away,” Adkison said.

Carson Hartlage, an Ohio medical student, said this is a dark day for the Ohio trans community.

“I was a trans kid who became a trans adult in Ohio, and it feels so dehumanizing to see my home state spend years trying to stop healthcare from my community,” Harlage said.

Tobacco

Back in January 2023, DeWine vetoed a bill that would have prevented any city or municipality from regulating smoking, vaping and other e-cigarette usage and sales. Before the Senate voted to override the tobacco veto, DeWine said a veto override would be horrible for Ohio children.

“I just don’t know how anybody thinks it was a great idea,” DeWine said. “To have more children in the state of Ohio become addicted (to nicotine).”

One out of every five children in Ohio vape, DeWine said.

“It’s the Tutti Frutti and all the other kinds of crazy flavors that masked all nicotine and it gets them addicted,” he said.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said lawmakers have turned their backs on Ohio kids with the veto override.

“Instead of offering solutions to address the health of Ohioans, lawmakers have now rolled back existing local laws regulating the sale of tobacco products and limited what local governments can do to prevent people from starting to use tobacco and help people quit,” ACS CAN said in a statement.

Municipal home rule gives cities and villages in Ohio the constitutional right to certain powers, including establishing laws in accordance with the self-government clause. Cities have the right to make their own policies, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of laws in the Ohio Revised Code.

Ohio Capital Journal reporter Zurie Pope contributed to this report. 

Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on X.