Gavel – Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm, via Unsplash; Transgender Pride Flag – Photo: Lena Balk, via Unsplash
An Ohio judge ruled that Ohio’s law banning transgender youth from seeking out gender-affirming care can take effect immediately. The law also contains provisions preventing transgender girls from participating in female-designated athletic activities.
Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Holbrook rescinded an earlier order he had issued in April blocking state authorities from enforcing the law.
He ruled that the ban doesn’t violate the Ohio Constitution’s health care freedom amendment, or an Ohio law requiring legislation be limited to a single subject, reports The Columbus Dispatch.
“The court finds the health care ban reasonably limits parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s medical care consistent with the state’s deeply rooted legitimate interest in the regulation of medical profession and medical treatments,” Holbrook wrote in his decision.
Under the law — which Republican lawmakers passed over objections from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — doctors are not allowed to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers and are prevented from recommending surgical interventions for transgender youth. (The law contains an exemption allowing nearly identical surgical interventions for intersex youth.)
The Ohio Attorney General’s office had previously argued that gender dysphoria should only be addressed through mental health interventions.
Critics of the law argue that the state has no business intruding on the right of parents, in consultation with medical experts, to allow their children to pursue hormonal treatments to treat their gender dysphoria.
“This loss is not just devastating for our brave clients, but for the many transgender youth and their families across the state who require this critical, life-saving health care,” Freda Levenson, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which represented the transgender plaintiffs and their families in the case.
Levenson called the court’s decision “a genuine setback.”
Jonathan McKinsey, a transgender engineering executive at The New York Times, was allegedly killed by his estranged wife's parents on September 26 amid a contentious custody dispute.
McKinsey, 40, the Times' head of engineering and games player experiences, was shot multiple times shortly after 3 p.m. at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Responding to calls from witnesses, Dublin police arrested Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, the parents of McKinsey's estranged wife, Candice Jang, reports NBC News.
Policies related to gender identity rank lowest among the issues American voters consider important to their vote in next month's midterm elections, according to a CNN poll.
Conducted by independent research company SSRS, the poll surveyed 1,206 U.S. adults online and by telephone September 16-17, including 867 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all adults and 4.1 points for registered voters.
The poll asked respondents to assess President Donald Trump's job performance and his handling of specific issues. Registered voters were also asked which party's congressional candidates they favored and which issues would influence their vote.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a 22-term congresswoman representing Northwest Ohio, has released two campaign ads opposing "gender ideology" ahead of the November election.
The first ad was posted to X on September 17 by Medium Buying, a Columbus-based political advertising firm, according to the Buckeye Flame, an Ohio LGBTQ news outlet.
In the ad, Kaptur seeks to counter attacks portraying her and other Democrats as too supportive of transgender rights while redirecting voters' attention to the economy and affordability.
"We're stuck in another unnecessary war and inflation is making everything more expensive, but my opponent won't talk about all that," Kaptur says, referring to her Republican challenger, former state Rep. Derek Merrin. "He'd rather lie about my record.
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