Ohio sued by ACLU for ‘unconstitutional’ trans athlete, healthcare ban

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The ACLU announced on Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit against the state of Ohio to halt a law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors before it takes effect next month.

The organization is challenging a provision in House Bill 68 that prohibits Ohio’s children’s hospitals from providing treatment like gender-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy to trans minors, according to the complaint filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of two families whose children are at risk of losing access to their healthcare.

“These personal, private medical decisions should remain between families and doctors; they don’t belong to politicians,” said Freda Levenson, Legal Director at the ACLU of Ohio. “We will fight in court to ensure that trans youth and their parents can access critically important, lifesaving healthcare without government intrusion.”

The complaint is asking the court to strike down H.B. 68 before the law takes effect on April 24. The ACLU also said the legislation violates four sections of the Ohio Constitution including the single-subject rule, the Health Care provision, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Due Course of Law provision, the ACLU argues.

The legal challenge comes after the Statehouse voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of the legislation. DeWine decided to reject the bill after visiting several children’s hospitals, arguing “parents should make these decisions and not the government.”

However, Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), the primary sponsor of H.B. 68, called gender-affirming care an “experiment” and has long argued “children are incapable of providing the informed consent necessary to make those very risky and life-changing decisions.”

Click said on Tuesday the complaint is “not surprising” and “par for the course,” and argued H.B. 68 was written “to be bullet proof when it came to lawsuits.” Click said he has the “utmost confidence in our attorney general who is capable of defending such commonsense legislation.”

While Click noted the lawsuit being filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas is “not the most idea place” for those in favor of H.B. 68, but he said “there’s an appeals process and I anticipate that ultimately it will make its way to the Supreme Court and it will be heard there and in the end, the law is on our side.”

“It is going to be a frivolous lawsuit because there is not constitutional right to sterilize children or to harm or to mutilate them,” said Click. “I believe that science and the law is on our side and we will prevail.”

Gender-affirming care is backed by every major medical association in the nation, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association. To override medical consensus is “government overreach,” the ACLU said and promised it will “reinstate Ohio families’ right to make personal medical decisions with healthcare providers — not politicians.”

“Families are now confronted with the extremely difficult decision of fleeing the state they call home to protect their children or allowing them to go without the care they and their doctors know is right for them,” said Chase Strangio, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU.

DeWine faced a wave of criticism from notable Republicans who called for the Statehouse to override his veto, including from former President Donald Trump, who wrote in a Truth Social post that DeWine “has fallen to the Radical Left.”

The governor attempted to assuage the backlash by signing an executive order in January to ban Ohio’s medical professionals from performing gender transition surgery on trans youth. DeWine previously said he in part enacted that order in anticipation of a suit against H.B. 68.

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