The Supreme Court of Ohio he heard oral arguments March 24 in a lawsuit that will determine whether transgender Ohioans under the age of 19 are entitled to gender-affirming health care.
The case dates back to 2024, when the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of two 12-year-old transgender girls and their parents challenging the “SAFE Act,” an Ohio law banning all types of gender-affirming health care for transgender minors.
In April 2024, an appellate judge suspended the enforcement of the measure by issuing a transient restraining order after: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio filed a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender girls – Madeline Moe and Grace Goe – at risk of losing access to health care under the act.
Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost submitted an extraordinary motion block a transient restraining order.
Ultimately, the court agreed Yost’s request to put this decision on hold – restoring a blanket ban on health care for transgender youth – including certain types of talk therapy and mental health resources – until the case is resolved by the justice system.
Six months later, a panel of judges w Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals of Ohio found the ban unconstitutional. The appeals court sent the case back to the trial court and imposed a indefinite injunction on HB 68’s ban on the operate of puberty blocking drugs and hormones “for the purpose of assisting a minor in the process of gender reassignment.”
Now the fate of the ban rests with the state’s highest court.
At least four of the Court’s seven judges expressed support for the ban. The Court is not expected to issue a decision for weeks, perhaps even months.
Arguing the case
During oral arguments, attorney Mathura J. Sridharan represented the State of Ohio, the Office of the Ohio Attorney General and the Ohio State Medical Board.
Judge Jennifer Brunner pressed Sridharan on the lack of medical evidence to support a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors. In response, Sridharan claimed that minors receiving gender-affirming health care are “writing down their fertility [and] their sexual reactivity for life.”
In fact, many people before the age of 19 receive hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming health care have biological children as adults. Transgender adults also tend to report such incidents a wide range of sexual function and satisfaction after receiving gender-affirming care.
While some types of gender-affirming surgery may impact your fertility in the long term, they do extremely uncommon for transgender people under 18 to undergo gender-affirming surgery.
Instead, transgender minors typically pursue “social transition,” often changing their names, pronouns, or gender presentation through cosmetics such as clothing, hairstyle, and makeup, under the care of a licensed medical and psychiatric team.
Before environmental lawmakers passed the ban, some minors also used puberty-blocking drugs and hormone replacement therapies.
Parents’ rights
Attorney Jordan Brock represented plaintiffs Madeline Moe and Grace Goe before seven Ohio Supreme Court justices.
“The impact of HB 68 is that there is no longer any evidence-based treatment for minors suffering from gender dysphoria in Ohio,” Brock told the Court.
“Before her treatment, Grace Goe doubted that death would allow her to come back as a girl, and Madeline Moe told her parents she wanted to die and just be reborn,” Brock said. “But when they were able to live as girls, they “bloomed” because they were “free to live in the world as they are.”
“This does not mean that the decision about where to continue treatment is easy, and it does not mean that there is a right answer in every particular case,” Brock added. “But it is the parents who have the right to decide, taking into account the girls’ situation, whether treatment is appropriate.”
Political influence in medical policy
Gender-affirming health care is considered lifesaving health care by all major medical associations in the world – except American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS).
ASPS – most recently representing approximately 11,000 plastic surgeons worldwide withdrew her support for gender-affirming surgical procedures for transgender people under 19 years of age. The group runs, among others: political action committee (PAC) PlastyPACwhich, at least as of 2021, is conservative in nature and donates tens of thousands of dollars to Republican political candidates.
On March 22, the American Medical Association (AMA) published a report entitled: statement explaining its support for gender-affirming health care for transgender minorsfollowing reports suggesting the group had changed its stance.
Anti-transgender legislation
Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming health care for minors is part of an unprecedented surge in anti-transgender legislation across the United States, increasingly limiting transgender Americans’ access to housing, health care, employment, education and public life.
Conservative Christian pastor Gary Click first proposed the 2022 bill.
Since then, the number of anti-transgender laws has skyrocketed.
In Ohio, anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups have been a major force behind anti-transgender legislation, recruiting gender-changed people across the country to testify in an effort to limit access to health care for transgender Americans.
The Columbus-based LGBTQ+ hate group, the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), provided extensive public testimony in support of the bill along with representatives from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Family Research Council (FRC) – both of which are also classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.
Gender-affirming health care is still legal for cisgender minors, who may also need access to hormone therapies or hormone-blocking medications for reasons unrelated to gender affirmation.
During oral arguments, Sridharan touched on political changemaker Chloe Cole, who has testified before state legislatures across the country about her personal regret over receiving gender-affirming care as a teenager.
Cole is among a diminutive group of people who discuss their personal experiences with “passing” before lawmakers, in some cases earning fees for their speaking engagements.
Realistically, transgender Americans report very low rates of regret about receiving gender-affirming health care. Between 1.3% and 2% transgender people report dissatisfaction or regret about seeking gender-sensitive health care throughout their lives.
For comparison A A study from 2025 was found that approximately 50% of Americans who had total knee replacement surgery reported subtle, moderate, or severe regret about the procedure.
Click has repeatedly called gender-affirming health care “experimental.” However, historians estimate that the concept and practice of gender-affirming care coincides with the beginnings of up-to-date medicine in the mid-19th century.
Gender-affirming healthcare is nothing novel
Evidence shows that gender-affirming health care has been practiced by physicians and health care professionals since the dawn of up-to-date medicine.
However, most documentation of gender-affirming practices and research began in the 1920s.
The richest library of medical and sociological research and documentation regarding sexual orientation, gender identity and gender-affirming medical practices belonged to the eminent sexologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld.
When In 1933, Nazi youth burned the librarythey have destroyed much of the up-to-date history of gender-affirming health care. 🔥
START ACTION
- If you are a teenage LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact Trevor’s project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are a transgender adult in need of immediate facilitate, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
- To learn more about Jake Newsome’s work as a public historian or to purchase his book, “The Legacy of the Pink Triangle: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust,” click here.
