The Ohio Supreme Court has allowed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth to go into effect while lower courts decide on the law’s constitutionality. The court granted a request from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) to allow the ban to go into effect, despite a judge’s ruling against the law last month, The Hill reported.
“It is a terrible shame that the Supreme Court of Ohio is permitting the state to evade compliance with the Ohio Constitution. Our clients have suffered tangible and irreparable harm during the eight months that HB 68 has been in place, including being denied essential health care in their home state,” the ACLU of Ohio’s legal director, Freda Levenson, said in a Tuesday statement about the court order.
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The case began soon after January 2024, when state Republican legislators passed H.B. 68, a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors as well as trans girls from playing on sports teams matching their gender identity. Gov. Mike DeWine (R) vetoed the bill, but both chambers of the state’s Republican-led legislature overrode his veto. Their override 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.
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The ban 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.
In response, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio sued on behalf of two families with trans kids, alleging that the law violated provisions in the Ohio constitution, including the equal protection clause, which ensures that individuals will be treated the same under the law, regardless of sex or gender. The ACLU also said that the law violates healthcare freedom and unfairly limits parents’ rights to make decisions about their kids’ medical care.
In April 2024, an Ohio judge issued a two-week block against the state’s ban, saying that it violated the state constitution’s “single subject rule,” which forbids bills from covering more than one subject. In this case, H.B. 68 included both a ban on trans athletes and on gender-affirming care.
Then, in August 2024, the same judge ruled that none of the ACLU’s legal arguments were sufficient to justify overturning H.B. 68. The judge ruled that the law didn’t violate the single subject rule because both of its provisions dealt with “the regulation of transgender individuals.” He also ruled that the law didn’t violate the equal protection clause because Ohio has a “legitimate interest” in “protecting” its citizens from the negative possible consequences of gender-affirming care and trans athletic participation.
The ACLU pledged to continue its legal battle against the law. Then, last month, a three-judge panel for the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals ruled that the ban violates a state constitutional amendment, Ohio’s Health Care Freedom Amendment. The amendment prevents state or federal intervention in denying any form of essential healthcare.
Plaintiffs pointed out the numerous medical associations that consider gender-affirming care to be essential to trans people’s overall well-being. State attorneys called up anti-trans medical “experts” to defend the ban, but the judges looked at the so-called experts’ credentials and found them to be unreliable state witnesses.
“H.B. 68 violates at least two separate provisions of the Ohio Constitution,” Levenson said. “We will continue to fight this extreme ban as the case goes ahead before the Supreme Court of Ohio.”
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