Overriding the governor’s veto, the Ohio state legislature passed legislation prohibiting transgender medical procedures involving minors and limiting the participation of transgender athletes on school sports teams.
Republican governor of the state Mike DeWine had opposed the bill, arguing that families and healthcare providers should make these decisions together.
However, the state House voted in a similar manner this month, 65-28, and the Ohio Senate overrode his veto by a vote of 24-8.
In ninety days, the ban will go into force.
There are currently laws limiting or outlawing transgender medical treatments for minors in more than 20 states led by Republicans.
A provision in the measure permits people who are currently going through such a transition to keep going as long as medical professionals certify that stopping it would be harmful otherwise.
It also prohibits transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ teams at the collegiate level and from kindergarten (five-year-olds) to the 12th grade (17–18-year-olds).
Republican state senator Kristina Roegner told other lawmakers during the hearing on Wednesday that “trying to change someone’s sex is a fool’s errand.”
Democratic state senator William DeMora called the bill “anti-science and hateful.”
A rare action by a Republican governor in one of the most conservative states in the union was Mr. DeWine’s veto of the bill in December.
He asserted that “the parents who have watched that child go through agony” should make these decisions, not the state of Ohio.
However, Mr. DeWine’s fellow Republicans utilized their supermajority to override him, claiming the measure was required to protect children.
Mr. DeWine presented what was perceived as a compromise measure in response to conservative backlash over his veto.
He signed an executive order outlawing gender-transition procedures on minors in certain clinics and hospitals. According to medical experts, the state does not perform these kinds of procedures.
The legislature’s bill’s opponents have threatened to challenge it in court, following in the footsteps of others in Arkansas, where a federal judge overturned a comparable law on the grounds that it infringed upon the rights of families and children to due process.
The decision is being appealed by the state.