Ohio’s LGBTQ+ advocacy and legal aid organization, Equality Ohio, has changed its rating for Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton from an “A” to a “Pending.” 2026 Candidate Scorecard.

The change follows comments Acton made to the Commission Blade of Toledo June 30 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold state bans on transgender athletes. Instead of expressing his opposition to the decision or commenting on Ohio’s ban on transgender athletes, Acton used anti-transgender language.

“I do not support boys playing girls’ sports. Ohio already has a law in place and as governor I will enforce and follow it,” Acton said. “As a doctor, public servant and mother, I will always advocate for justice and protect the health and safety of children….”

Equality Ohio announced Acton’s grade change on Tuesday along with an explanation (printed in full below):

“Comments like those recently made by Dr. Amy Acton in the Toledo Blade about transgender Ohioans are incredibly harmful. They reflect a broader pattern of transgender scapegoating, often based on data that is simply not true. National and Ohio polling consistently shows that voters reject this type of scapegoating and instead want leaders to focus on affordability, jobs and freedom from discrimination.”

As a result, we have updated Dr. Acton’s status on our 2026 Candidate Scorecard from “A” to “Pending.” This reflects our belief that accountability is still possible and that the door remains open for now. If Dr. Acton decides to take significant steps forward, we will update the status accordingly.

We remain committed to working with any candidate willing to work with LGBTQ+ communities to advance equality in Ohio.”

In July, Acton added the phrase to her campaign website: “All Ohioans deserve fair and equal treatment under the law. As Governor, I am committed to opposing discrimination and ensuring that every Ohioan – including members of the LGBT community – receives equal protection under the law.”

However, the next sentence did not include protections for gender identity or gender expression: “I will press for anti-discrimination laws to ensure that Ohioans are not unjustly fired from jobs or denied housing, other public accommodations, or equal pay because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.”

Acton’s opponent, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, received an “F” on his scorecard, indicating he has a “poor record and may harm LGBTQ+ civil rights.”

Ari Childrey – an openly transgender candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives who has publicly spoken out against Acton’s comments – said Equality Ohio “made the right decision” by changing Acton’s pay grade.

“It just proves that no candidate — I don’t care what party you belong to — gets a free pass to use harmful rhetoric against transgender youth,” Childrey told The Buckeye Flame. “I respect the integrity of this scorecard. The door is always open to Dr. Acton to step in and actually put in the work to correct her comments, but let’s be clear: the burden of proof now rests entirely with her campaign to show that she truly cares about our community.”

On July 6, the Buckeye Flame contacted Dr. Acton’s campaign staff to schedule an interview regarding her candidacy and received the following response: “Dr. Acton does not have room in her schedule for this right now. We will be in touch and let you know of any open positions.”

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• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
• If you are a newborn LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact Trevor’s project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
• If you are a transgender adult in need of immediate lend a hand, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860

As Ohio’s Republican majority seeks to transform the state’s public education system, Youngstown middle school teacher Erica Putro was surprised to discover that her colleagues knew little about anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that would completely change the way they interact with queer students.

Few of her peers knew much about him Ohio House of Representatives Bill 8 (the “Parents’ Bill of Rights”), which requires schools to exclude transgender students who “identify as gender non-conforming” to the gender marker on their original birth certificate.

Concerned about the lack of awareness, Putro helped launch it Integrity for Education in the Mahoning Valley together with a local non-profit organization supporting LGBTQ+, Mahoning Valley Queer Action (MVQA). The goal is to educate teachers about anti-LGBTQ+ laws that impact their classrooms and aid motivate school officials to protect students.

“We should ensure that children are healthy, safe, supported, challenged and engaged,” Putro said. “It is impossible to be sure that children are healthy and safe if we embrace extremist ideology.”

HB 8 is “hard to ignore” and the lack of guidance from schools has been “frustrating,” said Putro, who has been a teacher for 27 years and whose own children are LGBTQ+. New Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws, Executive Orders, and Trans Teen Deaths – Including a Murder in 2024 Pauly Compares in nearby Sharon, Pennsylvania – hit too close to home.

“Everything started to feel very personal,” Putro said. Queer teens in the community “just really want to be kids.”

Even though the bill had an impact in the classroom, she stated that “very few teachers” knew about the bill – including leaders in her own school district. “She felt really brave one day” when she saw just board members in the hallway.

“I said, ‘Can you talk to me about our HB 8 policy – the policy that you all had to write over the summer and file with the state that requires that if a student asks us to use different pronouns, we call their parents?’” Putro recalled. “The board member had no idea what I was talking about.”

The local group was formed after one of MVQA Putro’s members took a job Fairness for Education in Ohio – A statewide, nonpartisan coalition advocating for student protections from discrimination and supporting local control of schools. Having this connection helped MVQA create the Mahoning Valley Integrity team, which works with the state group.

“We were wondering if we could work with [Honesty for Ohio Education]then maybe the resources and the tools and even just the public profile that they have would give us some influence or help us make progress,” Putro said.

On July 11, Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education hosted its first major event: a panel discussion with an organization advocating for LGBTQ students Shineamong others. The turnout was petite, but Putro said people were engaged.

Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education will host first open meeting at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, July 30, at the Newport Library, 3730 Market St. in Youngstown.

Even as the culture wars dominate media attention, Putro said she doesn’t want to lose sight of the real issue that parents, teachers and citizens must fight: the elimination of free public education.

“Start these conversations, be more direct [our] school principals and school boards. If that’s what comes out of it, we’d be thrilled,” she said. “We have to remember that these public schools are ours too and always have been.”

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• To learn more about the first Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education open meeting on July 30, click here.
• To access Honesty for Ohio Education’s educational resources, click here.
• To learn more about LGBTQ+ legislation in Ohio, check out The Buckeye Flame’s 2025-2026 LGBTQ+ Legislation Guide by clicking here.

This piece was originally published by the publishing house Ohio Capital Journal and appears here with permission.

By Susan Tebben

Public school librarians in Ohio are sounding the alarm about book bans and funding cuts.

School librarians have been dealing with challenges in their jobs since they find themselves in the stacks in their local districts.

Proposed regulations aimed at filtering the reading choices students can make have raised concerns, and budget cuts raise some concerns about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

“Today, many administrators and school boards view hiring school librarians as a luxury,” said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. “I think a lot of school librarians (in Ohio) are just hoping to stay employed.”

Schmuhl said many association members are wondering about the future of their work amid cuts to public school funding in Ohio and the debate over property taxes earmarked for education.

Cuts to the state’s public education have been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court rulings found this to be the case the state did not pay its constitutional share.

In 2022, a model called the Fair Schools Funding Plan was created, based on bipartisan sponsorship, and passed in what some saw as a novel era for Ohio. The plan was to fund schools based on actual needs in individual school districts.

The model almost passed its planned six-year rollout, but Ohio Republican lawmakers abandoned it in the last operating budget.

Although the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million boost in school funding, according to the Fair School Funding Plan model he needed at least three times that amount maintain your initial calculations and keep up with inflation.

However, legislators increased the private school voucher financing counted in billions.

Courtney Johnson was a school librarian in Columbus for 10 years, and the reduction in public school funding plans contributed to her return to teaching English.

She worried that while school funding priorities had not been set, cuts could mean she would split her time as a librarian across several district buildings.

“I’m a person who likes to root myself in a place and come back to my ‘workhouse’ every day,” Johnson told the Capital Journal.

Johnson said returning to the classroom also means following the entire class throughout their year of experience, as well as helping children with reading and writing, two passions that brought her to this profession.

“Every child has a story, even if they don’t believe it at first, and I love giving them the space to tell their stories,” Johnson said.

As a librarian, she has seen how crucial it is for parents to read to their children, for students to be given context around other subjects in school in order to gain a “full background knowledge” that will assist them decode the words they read, and to encourage connections between children and books.

“We know that when children see themselves in books, they feel more connected to them and enjoy reading more,” Johnson said. “Similarly, children can see how other people live in books and thus develop empathy.”

Part of the job of the state-of-the-art school librarian is to discuss with parents materials that they may find so inappropriate that they request that they be removed from the shelves.

Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian also with the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to conduct a survey of school librarians using the list of members of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association.

Of those who took part in Hawkes’ study, 56% “experienced incidents of censorship” between 2021 and 2025.

Although she only received responses from 32 school librarians, or about 10% of all school librarians in the state, she said these experiences still point to a challenge in Ohio.

“We’re getting some indication of what’s going on,” Hawkes said, noting that because each state doesn’t have a standard survey system to study censorship in libraries, the numbers from organizations like the American Library Association may be smaller than the actual number of cases nationwide.

According to the ALA, the American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, and last year there were seven attempts to censor 129 books.

Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of experiences she has heard about in the state.

“I have noticed that school librarians in our districts have been proactive and tried to ensure good communication within their school districts (about book ban attempts),” Schmuhl said.

Hawkes’ study found that of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, eleven were for “non-removal challenges,” eight resulted in some type of book ban, and three were for “movement of books or other materials.”

According to the researcher, librarians utilize “objective criteria” when deciding what materials are age appropriate and relevant for school libraries. The training they receive qualifies them to make inventory decisions and deal with challenges posed by parents, most of which emerged from the study.

The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as a director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a master’s degree in library science.

“First of all, I wanted people to understand that parents have the right to decide what their children read, and when they read it… they can approach librarians about it,” Hawkes said. “They can’t ban other people’s children’s books.”

For Johnson, returning to the English language does not mean she will avoid the topic of censorship.

“I think I can handle it in public schools with what’s going on right now, regardless of my position,” she said.

The Legislature approved one measure aimed at forcing public libraries to move “inappropriate” materials out of sight of minors, but Governor Mike DeWine vetoed the decision as “impossible”.

It would mandate another bill that is still pending in the Legislature providers of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create safeguards to prevent “inappropriate” content from reaching children’s eyes.

Opponents of the materials say the bill could have unintended consequences by also removing educational materials.

Johnson’s goals in the classroom include helping children continue reading to “prepare them for this really difficult world we’re in,” as well as involving parents in the process.

“We must work together as parents and school communities to ensure children are literate. We know that having books at home and at school at their fingertips is just the beginning of this,” she said.

On the last day of Pride, a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court sustained state bans in Idaho and West Virginia preventing transgender girls from playing sports that correspond with their gender.

Ohio has already passed a trans sports ban through HB 68 in 2024, which was passed after a majority of Republicans overrode Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of the bill, which also prohibited transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming care. The ban remains in effect as an appeal is currently pending in the Ohio Supreme Court.

LGBTQ+ organizations in Ohio quickly responded to Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling.

Executive Director for TransOhio Dara Adkison called the ruling “one of the most significant failures for transgender rights in modern history.”

“By allowing transgender student-athletes to be excluded from school sports solely on the basis of their perceived gender, the Court endorsed government discrimination against a vulnerable population and departed from the principle that all people deserve equal protection under the law,” Adkison said in a statement. “This decision does not erase transgender people from our schools, communities or families. Transgender Ohioans have always existed and always will.”

Statement by an organization working for LGBTQ+ people Equality, Ohio she called the ruling “extremely painful for young transgender people and their families.”

The statement, addressed directly to transgender youth, reads: “No court decision can erase your humanity, your dignity or your place in our community.”

“Equality Ohio will not stop fighting until every Ohioan experiences equality in life and the law,” the statement concluded.

Ben Huelskamp, ​​executive director of an LGBTQ+ religious support organization LOVESbravelyhe said the decision was “cruel”.

“She claims to defend ‘women’s sports,’ but she does so by sacrificing real, named, individual girls and women on the altar of abstraction,” Huelskamp said in a statement. “This is not protection. It is a scapegoat with a legal opinion attached. ”

The Columbus LGBTQ+ Commission has issued a statement regarding the “senseless attack on our transgender youth.” The fresh commission said its members would turn “this moment into action by working with transponder organizations.”

“While this decision is disappointing, it does not mean there is a nationwide ban on transgender athletes, nor does it force states or cities to enact such a ban,” the statement read. “Today we reaffirm this commitment to our transgender neighbors and their families who deserve justice, equality and inclusion.”

Editor’s note: This is a developing story. The article may be supplemented with additional statements from other organizations.

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START ACTION

• If you are a juvenile 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.

A Republican lawmaker from Ohio has introduced a bill to ensure that all people in state custody will be housed according to the state’s definition of “biological sex” – even though this is already the practice in Ohio.

Rep. Josh Williams (Sylvania Twp) introduced HB 796 on March 25. The bill has not yet been referred to committee.

The text of the bill would update the current wording of the Ohio Revised Code to require Ohio prisons to separate inmates by biological sex.

This definition “biological sex” was passed by the Ohio Legislature in 2024 as part of HB 68, the SAFE Act, which banned gender-affirming care for minors in Ohio.

Just a few weeks ago, a Kentucky legislator introduced it a bill similar to the one in Ohio, segregating incarcerated people in the state based on Kentucky’s state definition of “biological sex” and prohibiting the state Department of Corrections from providing gender-affirming care.

Fight for space

In Ohio, a transgender woman has been fighting for years to be placed in a women’s shelter. Riicara Janel Diorwho transitioned in 2011 and began receiving hormones in 2020, claims she was raped in a men’s prison and is now isolated from other inmates rather than being transferred to a women’s facility, which she repeatedly requested – and was denied.

Dior’s lawsuit seeking to be placed in a women’s prison is currently pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Sexual assault and the Trump administration

Ohio HB 796 comes just days after the Trump administration announced a federal investigation into the matter Maine and California placing transgender women in women’s facilities. This statement is part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing crusade against transgender people, which began on February 12, 2013 the first day of the second term when he issued a series of executive orders targeting the miniature, vulnerable number of transgender people in federal custody.

One of Trump’s executive orders ordered the housing of transgender women with men and instructed the federal government to roll back protections for transgender people under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Fulfill this mandate wellbehind schedule last year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a private memo revealing plans to remove these protections in federal, state, and local prisons; prisons; and youth correctional centers.

In another order, the Trump administration banned the federal government from funding gender-affirming care for transgender people. In response, the ACLU filed a complaint class action lawsuit against the Trump administration – even though the government did it We have already started the exchange any transitional care including therapy and antidepressants in line with the recent policy published in February.

Although the Trump administration has done this repeatedly falsely found that transgender women pose a risk to cisgender women behind bars, data from: the Department of Justice itself shows that transgender people face significantly higher rates of violence than cisgender people incarcerated. Additional studies have repeatedly demonstrated that transgender people are routinely subjected to verbal, physical and sexual violence by prison staff and other inmates.

Although the Trump administration recently withheld data on transgender people based on reports on sexual violence – the latest data from the Department of Justice published in 2014shows that almost 40% of incarcerated trans people reported being sexually assaulted in the last year.

The draft laws coincide with political ambitions

Rep. Williams is currently a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and hopes to challenge incumbent Republican Marcy Kaptur to represent the Ninth Congressional District in northern Ohio if he can make it out of the crowded GOP primary.

In this 2025-2026 General Assembly, since he announced his candidacy, Williams introduced 99 bills as a primary sponsorcompared to 30 bills he introduced in the General Assembly in 2023–2024.

These 97 bills include various anti-LGBTQ+ pieces of legislation, including:

• HB 249 (the “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act”), which would ban drag and gender-related performances in public spaces where minors are present.
• HB 262 to designate “Natural Family Month” to honor only heterosexual marriages with children.
• HB 693 (“The First Affirming Families Act”) to provide protections for parents who reject their transgender children.

Williams has repeatedly made clear his feelings for transgender Ohioans.

“I truly believe that there are people who believe they are the opposite sex,” Williams said during the March 11 hearing on HB 693. “I think that’s a false belief, and I think that perpetuating that false belief is harmful to our society.”

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• To access The Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2026 LGBTQ+ legislation guide, click here.
• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.

On Visibility Day, the Ohio Republican introduced up-to-date legislation that would restrict transgender Ohioans’ access to public restrooms and prohibit Ohioans from changing their gender designation on their birth and death certificates.

House Bill (HB) 798 (“Privacy Protection Act”) is sponsored by Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.), a lawmaker who has currently introduced nearly 100 bills in the General Assembly in his bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Williams has repeatedly spoken out, saying that affirming a transgender identity would be “harmful to society.”

HB 798 is a wide-ranging bill that includes:

Bathroom restrictions:

• Designate all public and government-owned shared toilets and changing rooms as single-sex, except for persons accompanying a person under 10 years of age or a person with a disability.
• Allow people to take legal action against someone maintaining toilets and changing rooms if they encounter someone they believe to be of the opposite sex.
• Allow K-12 students and staff to take legal action against school districts if a student encounters someone they perceive to be of the opposite sex in a restroom or locker room.
• Allow the Attorney General to take action against any owner of a public space for allowing a single-sex restroom violation, including civil penalties.

Name and pronoun restrictions:

• Prohibit school and university employees from addressing a minor by a name other than his/her name and surname (or a derivative thereof) or using pronouns that do not correspond to the minor’s “biological sex”.
• Prevent school, college, government, and student employees and students from being penalized for failing to identify their pronouns or for misgendering or misgendering transgender students or employees.

Restrictions on gender markers in documentation:

• Restrict gender markers on driving licenses to only correspond to “biological sex”.
• Mandate that all birth and death certificates in Ohio include gender designation on the documentation.
• A ban on changing gender markers in all marriage and divorce documents.
• A ban on changing gender markers on all birth certificates.
• Ban on changing gender designation on all death certificates.

Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio, notes that HB 798’s date of March 31, Trans Day of Visibility, “is intended to cause stress and emotional harm.”

“Visibility without protection is a risk; we know that,” Adkison said.

Adkison wants Ohioans to continue to think “this bill isn’t real yet” because it hasn’t even been assigned to a committee.

“But today we are real and together we will get through everything,” they said.

Current Ohio Law

Ohio’s position on changing gender designation on birth certificates is inconsistent. In 2021, the Ohio Department of Health declined to appeal a federal court ruling that gave transgender Ohioans the right to change their gender marker on their birth certificate.

Transgender plaintiffs continued to sue the state as individual courts issued inconsistent rulings, with some judges allowing transgender people to change their markers, others not. After the same plaintiffs argued for a consistent policy, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a “non-decision” in 2021 that upheld the state’s inconsistent birth certificate rulings.

If the birth certificate does not match a transgender person’s gender, their death certificate does they were probably mislabeled as wellAccording to an article published in The19th. An incorrect death certificate would essentially erase a transgender person’s identity history.

A team of researchers from Portland, Oregon, who in 2022 quantitative data on transgender people who died over the past decade had to rely on medical examiner testimony about someone’s death to confirm their true gender. More than half had the wrong gender.

HB 798 would expand Ohio’s restroom ban from 2024, which currently only applies to preschools and colleges.

Adding perspective

Dwayne Steward, executive director of Equality Ohio, called HB 798 “a clear and clear attack on transgender Ohioans.”

“In doing so, Rep. Williams unwittingly furthered one of TDoV’s primary goals: raising awareness of the discrimination that transgender people face on a daily basis,” Steward said.

Steward also wants Ohioans to remember that HB 798 is not law and likely won’t become law until the end of the General Assembly’s two-year session in December.

“This is essentially a taxpayer-funded press release dressed up as a bill,” Steward said.

Finally, Steward emphasized that “almost none” of Williams’ bill became law or benefited the people of northwest Ohio.

“At a time when people across Ohio are struggling with skyrocketing electricity bills, gas prices, grocery prices and housing costs, Williams consistently pushes the envelope to show how someone can use the platform, prestige and public resources entrusted to Ohio’s potential public servants to instead serve only themselves,” Steward said.

This article has been updated to add a section of the bill that would restrict people who have sex on a driver’s license to only match their “biological sex.”

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• To access The Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2026 LGBTQ+ legislation guide, click here.
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• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.

The Ohio House Judiciary held a second hearing on HB 639 (“Act One on the Affirmation of the Family”) on Wednesday, a bill providing protections for parents who reject their transgender children.

HB 369 redefines “affirmation” as a parent’s right to recognize only their child’s gender at birth and to avoid having their transgender child’s rejection used against them by any courts or state agencies.

Wednesday’s hearing was an opportunity for proponents to testify: those who support the bill. Witnesses included representatives from two organizations deemed anti-LGBTQ+ by the Southern Poverty Law Center, mothers with multiple children who misgendered their children, and two “lesbian Democrats” who traveled to Ohio to argue that no one is actually transgender.

The hearing began with an appearance by Megan Brock, an investigative reporter for The Daily Wire, a far-right newspaper founded by conservative provocateur Ben Shapiro.

Brock said her multi-year investigation concluded that “Cuyahoga County’s child welfare system was a breeding ground for radical gender ideology-based policies” thanks to a federal grant that allowed the county to collect demographic information on youth in foster care to best support LGBTQ+ youth, who are disproportionately overrepresented in that system.

HB 693 prevents state agencies from collecting information about a minor’s LGBTQ+ identity without the consent of a parent, legal guardian or custodian, or from maintaining a database of parents who deny their child’s LGBTQ+ identity.

After Democratic lawmakers asked Brock questions about her research quotes, Republicans on the committee quickly expressed their views.

“Talking to my constituents, people are fed up with this crap,” said Rep. DJ Swearingen (R-Huron), visibly frustrated by questions about trans identity.

Laura Bryant Hanford, a senior policy analyst at the company, was scheduled to testify next Heritage Foundationchief architect of the president’s anti-LGBTQ+ transition plan Project 2025.

Bryant Hanford spoke of the “radical ideological training that has so deeply permeated child protection systems” and that the bill would address the “poisonous” practice of affirmative action for transgender children.

“[This bill] is the result of extensive collaboration with parent advocates, policymakers and lawyers to protect children and families impacted by radical gender ideology,” said Bryant Hanford.

Matt Sharp, Senior Advisor at Alliance Defending Freedom – anti-LGBTQ+ hate group – he talked about the case of Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, a couple from Vermont who they were recently allowed to reapply for a replacement license. Their foster status was previously questioned after they said they would not confirm the child’s LGBTQ+ identity due to his or her “religious beliefs.”

“HB 693 will protect caring families here in Ohio from being forced to abandon their faith as a condition of opening their homes to children in need,” Sharp said.

Lesbian Democrats enter the room

Wednesday’s hearing from supporters also included testimony from two out-of-state witnesses – both of whom claimed to be lesbian Democrats – who spoke out against affirming affirmative action for trans youth.

One section of HB 693 would prevent any state authority from “stating or implying” that any “mental and mental health treatment” that refuses to recognize a transgender child could be called “conversion therapy.”

Jamie Reed – who describes herself online as a “courageous public whistleblower from the U.S. Pediatric Gender Clinic” who testified in 17 states in 2025 – has reframed gender-affirming care as “gay conversion” therapy and said “many gay and lesbian adults” agree with her.

“Majority [trans youth] If we leave them to their own devices, they will grow up to be happy, healthy homosexuals like me,” Reed said. “We believe that these are protogay children who will grow up to be homosexuals just like us. We consider this to be gay conversion therapy at its worst.”

Lauren Leggieri, a lesbian and “lifelong Democrat,” testified that affirming transgender youth is a “gay rights issue.”

“Many children undergoing social and medical transitions would, without intervention, grow into gay and lesbian adults,” Leggieri said, linking sexual orientation to gender identity.

HB 693 remains in the Judiciary Committee and has not yet been scheduled for a third hearing.

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Ignite the action

• To access The Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2026 LGBTQ+ legislation guide, click here.
• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
• If you are a youthful LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact Trevor’s project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
• If you are a transgender adult in need of immediate support, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860

Members of the Ohio House voted Wednesday to advance the state’s ban on public cross-dressing and gender-specific performances.

Ohio House Bill (HB) 249 – which has passed three committee hearings and is full of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-transgender disinformation – will now go to the Senate. The bill passed the House on a 63-30 vote, largely along party lines: Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord) broke ranks to vote against the bill.

If it passed, “Passing the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act” would ban drag queen and gender-specific performances outside “adult cabarets” or other public places where a minor may be present.

Public performances that meet the definition of obscenity are already prohibited under Ohio law.

The bill’s anti-LGBTQ+ language would disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ performers by severely restricting “performers or entertainers who demonstrate a gender identity other than the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex through the use of clothing, makeup, prosthetics or imitations of genitalia or breasts or other physical characteristics…”

Additionally, a separate part of the bill that replaces the phrase “private area” with “private area” would also aid criminalize transgender and gender non-conforming people who apply gender-specific public facilities on a daily basis.

Targeting transgender Ohioans

HB 249’s lead sponsor – conservative Christian Rep. Josh Williams (Oregon) – said the bill would prevent transgender Ohioans from using gender-specific public facilities, such as locker rooms, to change clothing during the day.

During her public testimony, Williams referenced at length an anti-transgender incident that occurred at a YMCA in Xenia, Ohio, in which a transgender person was sued after she tried to change her clothes in a shared gender-conforming locker room.

The incident was not part of a drag queen or gender performance.

Ultimately, the judge found that the transgender person was not guilty of public indecency.

But both Williams and David Mahan — executive policy director of the Columbus-based anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) — said the bill would prevent judges from ruling in this way in future cases.

The bill’s co-author, Rep. Angie King (R-Celina), discussed the lawsuit in detail before the House vote.

Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee rejected an amendment from Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio (D-Columbus) that would have removed this language.

Brown Piccolantonio told lawmakers that removing this language “[clarify] that the bill is not intended to target anyone whose appearance differs from their sex assigned at birth by simply removing language regarding dressing in a manner inconsistent with one’s “biological sex.”

In 2023, Arkansas lawmakers gutted a similar anti-drag billradically amending it to exclude linguistic performers who demonstrate a gender identity different from their assigned sex at birth by “using clothing, makeup, or other accessories that are traditionally worn by band members and that are intended to exaggerate the gender identity of the performer’s opposite sex.”

Williams told fellow lawmakers that the portion of the legislation targeting LGBTQ+ Ohioans is an vital part of the bill’s goal.

“I oppose this amendment,” Williams said. “This amendment undermines the intentions of the bill’s authors. It undermines the specific indecent and child-endangering acts that we are trying to implement.”

The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill and forwarded it to the Ohio House for a full vote that afternoon. Later – before the full House – Williams, while discussing Xenia’s lawsuit for a second time, apparently called transgender people who apply shared public facilities to change their clothes “perverts.”

“As long as I live, I will prevent perverts from exposing children to indecent material,” Williams said.

LGBTQ+ leaders condemn the bill

Executive Director and CEO of the company Equality Ohio Education Fund and Equality Ohio Dwayne Steward issued a written statement condemning the bill.

“This bill takes ordinary, everyday activities and turns them into potential crimes based on whether someone else might be offended by what other people are wearing,” Steward said in a written statement.

“This bill gives the government unacceptable powers to control what people wear,” Steward added.

“Dragging is just the beginning,” Steward said. “Attacks on drag queens and transgender people, like many bills restricting LGBTQ+ visibility, have many consequences that threaten fundamental freedoms and safety.”

Rep. Dontavious L. Jarrells (D-Columbus) vehemently opposed the bill, citing his own experience navigating anti-Black legislation.

“This bill is not about children,” Jarrells said. “It’s about dehumanizing people who don’t look like me.”

“This bill literally singles out trans people, singles out gender non-conforming people, and basically questions, ‘Should you exist in the public eye?’ That is the reality of this bill,” he added. “When you talk about what this bill really is, it is an attack on human life.”

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Ignite the action

• To access The Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2026 LGBTQ+ legislation guide, click here.
• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
• If you are a newborn LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact Trevor’s project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
• If you are a transgender adult in need of immediate aid, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860

Drag queen artists and performers testified alongside other Ohioans against Ohio House Bill (HB) 249 Wednesday afternoon before members of the House Judiciary Committee.

Bill, “Passing the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act” would ban drag queen and gender-specific performances outside “adult cabarets” or other public places where a minor may be present.

Several renowned drag performers have testified against the bill, including Andrew Levitt, who performs in drag as Nina West.

The bill’s conservative, Christian sponsors – Republicans Joshua Williams (Oregon) and Republican Angie King (Celina) – strongly supported anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the Ohio Statehouse, including a complete health care ban for transgender youth.

As of 2023, at least 14 states have enacted similar bans on public appearances and gender-specific performances, including Tennessee – where the US Supreme Court declined to hear a federal court appeal and allowed the ban to stand.

“Indecent” performances are already illegal

Notably, Representative Williams was absent from part of the hearing. While present, he repeatedly pressed Ohioans with the same question regarding obscene performances:

“Why do you think drag queen performers should be allowed to engage in simulated masturbation and simulated sex in the presence of minors?” he asked Levitt, who pointed to Ohio’s current law, which already prohibits indecent performances.

Against the current Ohio Revised Code 2907.01material is considered obscene if “the average person, applying contemporary societal standards, would consider that it appeals to prurient interests, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

ACLU of OhioGary Daniels told lawmakers that performances that meet the definition of obscenity are already banned under two separate laws: Distribution of content harmful to minors” (2907.31) AND Pampering Indecency (2907.32).

“If this is what concerns supporters of this bill, there are at least two bills that explicitly address the type of behavior that people cite as disturbing,” Daniels said. “Both clearly refer to performances.”

“This bill is unnecessary,” he told parliamentarians. “The conduct that people are already talking about and that worries them is specifically covered by these two areas of Ohio law.”

Targeting transgender Ohioans in everyday life

During the second hearing on the bill, public testimony from conservative Christians showed that anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and conservative Republicans intend to operate the bill to attack and criminalize transgender Ohioans by limiting their access to gender-specific public facilities such as dressing rooms and locker rooms.

The second session on the bill also takes place included public testimony support for the bill by two anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups: Mission America and based in Columbus Center for Christian Virtue (CCV)which is the main driving force behind anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the Ohio Statehouse.

HB 249 specifically prohibits “performers or entertainers who demonstrate a gender identity other than the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex by using clothing, makeup, prosthetics, or imitations of genitalia or breasts or other physical characteristics…”

However, the part of the bill that replaces the phrase “private area” with “private area” would assist criminalize transgender and gender non-conforming people who operate gender-conforming public facilities to change clothing in their daily lives.

In previous public testimony, CCV Executive Director of Policy David Mahan linked transgender people using gender-specific public facilities, such as dressing rooms and locker rooms, with drag performers performing on stages in public entertainment venues.

He cited a separate anti-transgender incident that occurred in 2022, when Greene County resident Janell Holloway filed a lawsuit after seeing a naked transgender woman using a public locker room at a YMCA in the rural community of Xenia.

Ultimately, a municipal court judge found that a transgender person was not guilty of public indecency, but Mahan said HB 249 would assist change that legal situation for other transgender people in the future.

“This bill will prevent judges from being able to do that in the future,” Mahan said.

“Touching the True Purpose”

The incident highlights larger concerns about gender policing in public spaces

Melody Wojno – going by Maelstrom West – provided extensive public testimony, answering questions from both Democratic and Republican committee members.

While trying to ask Wojno a question about the incident at the Xenia YMCA, Williams misidentified the gender of a transgender person involved in the case.

Wojno corrected him many times.

“If we have to show respect, you should too, Representative,” she said.

After a few seconds of silence, he replied:

“You won’t make me talk.”

“I think we’ve finally reached the real goal. It’s a bill disguised as a drag ban, targeting trans people,” Wojno said after the interaction. “These other things are performances. My life is not a performance.”

Director of Public Policy Ohio Planned Parenthood supporters AND Planned Parenthood Greater Ohio Danielle Firsich also testified against the bill.

During a heated exchange with Williams and Rep. DJ Swearingen (Huron), Firsich pointed to recent child sexual abuse allegations against Republican Rodney Creech (West Alexandria), who co-sponsored the bill.

“I also don’t want to be lectured on what is obscene and what is not for children,” Firsich said. “You have a man who was just reinstated to his committees and who was accused of sexual misconduct with a minor who is sponsoring this bill.”

Creech was accused of crawling into bed with the minor upright and partially clothed. He has since denied the allegations, calling them “political in nature.”

Additionally, Firsich highlighted the bill’s other primary sponsor, Rep. Angie King (R-Celina), who protested against the 2023 LGBTQ+ Pride event with members of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Freedom Network.

Anti-transgender laws in Nazi Germany

Historians notice this transgender people have been targeted, imprisoned and killed applying similar public and sexual decency laws to Germany under Nazi rule.

Historian and author of the Holocaust Dr. Jake Newsome pointed to state restrictions on resistance and gender nonconformity as indicators of fascist political ideology.

In Weimar times, there were already laws regarding public decency Paragraph 183 of the German Criminal Codewhich prohibited “sexual self-determination.” However, this rule was rarely enforced, and transgender and gender non-conforming people maintained convoluted social support networks and a wealthy cultural community.

Some with the social support of the groundbreaking sexologist from Berlin, Dr. Magnus Hirschfield Transgender people were issued “transvestite passes” by law enforcement, allowing them to move freely in their daily lives while “cross-dressing”, despite laws restricting such behavior.

After German Chancellor Adolf Hitler revoked these certificates in 1933, Nazi officials increasingly used Section 183 to arrest and imprison transgender people accused of violating both public nuisance and sexual immorality laws as they saw fit.

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Ignite the action

• Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2025 LGBTQ+ Legislation Guide can be found here.
• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
• 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 assist, 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.

On Wednesday, Ohio lawmakers debated a bill that would provide protections for parents who reject their transgender children.

HB 639 (“Act One on the Affirmation of the Family”) was introduced by Reps. Joshua Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.) and Gary Click (R-Vickery), both sponsors of countless anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

The bill redefines “affirmation” as a parent’s right to recognize only their child’s gender at birth and not allow their rejection of their transgender child to be used against them by any court or state agency.

Wednesday’s hearing was an opportunity for sponsor testimony: Williams and Click spoke in support of their bill.

The hearing became noticeably controversial when Democratic lawmakers sharply opposed Republican co-sponsors over the bill’s anti-transgender underpinnings.

‘Common sense’

Rep. Click immediately introduced the bill during his testimony, hailing it as “common sense.”

“It is not against the law to raise your son as a boy or your daughter as a girl,” Click said.

He cited two cases in which he accused parents of being denied the right to insist on the “biological reality” of their child – one of them Virginia and one of anonymous family in Maryland reported by Tucker Carlson’s publication – as a justification for the need to apply HB 693 in Ohio.

“It is disturbing and un-American for institutions of government to perpetuate a vicious culture war against Ohio State’s parents,” Click said in his written testimony.

Both Click and Williams have repeatedly called on Cuyahoga County to take part in a program they say tracks youth’s LGBTQ+ identity and views parents who reject their transgender children as a threat.

“This is a disgusting insult to parents’ parental rights and their constitutional right to raise their children as they see fit,” Williams said.

Later in the hearing, Republicans suggested taking further steps to directly question Cuyahoga County officials if they did not voluntarily testify as part of the HB 693 hearings.

“We should exercise our subpoena power to bring them here and question them ourselves,” said Rep. DJ Swearingen (R-Huron).

“Trick Question”

Rep. Eric Synenberg (D-Beachwood) began questioning the bill’s sponsors by emphasizing their claim that they aim to “protect the dignity of all Ohio families.”

“What about the dignity and mental well-being of children in Ohio?” – asked Synenberg. “Do you accept and acknowledge that transgender people exist?”

When Click replied that he thought it was a “bad idea” for parents to “socially affirm” their children, Synenberg said Click did not answer his question.

“Do you accept and acknowledge that transgender people, including children, exist?” – he repeated.

Click called it a “trick question” and then provided an answer full of false data.

“From my previous research, all of these children have a lot of comorbidities,” Click said. “Many of them are victims of violence, and this transgender identity is a way of escape. We know that children left alone without medical intervention, 98% of them will cease to exist after puberty and will begin to re-identify with their birth gender.”

An extensive 2015 study by The Trevor Project found that between 8% and 13% of transgender Americans detransform at some point in their lives – defined as “[going] return to living according to the gender assigned at birth, at least for a while.

However, people who transition do not always stop identifying as transgender or report regretting receiving gender-affirming health care. Instead, resettlement is often transient and dependent on a person’s safety or ability to access health care.

Above 80% of people who retire report feeling pressured to give up external sources. The most frequently mentioned factors were: pressure from a parent (36%), change too tough (33%), excessive harassment or discrimination (31%) and problems with finding a job (29%).

Unlike detransportation, opt-out refers to a person permanently ceasing to identify as transgender and reversing their social or medical transition – often expressing regret for receiving gender-affirming care.

The term itself comes from crime research and most often refers to gender non-conforming children who “maintain” or “cease” gender differentiation as they grow up.

Researchers still believe that constant abandonment is scarce.

Recent study in the American Journal of Pediatrics found that 97.5% of transgender youth still identify as transgender after five years.

Williams interjected to clarify his position.

“I truly believe there are people who believe they are the opposite sex,” Williams said. “I think that’s a false belief, and I think that perpetuating that false belief is harmful to our society.”

“Parental alienation”

Before being asked questions, Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio (D-Gahanna) said she felt “exhausted” by the “repeated conversations” about protecting anti-trans views.

“There are real problems that we are not talking about in the committee right now,” she said.

Her comment angered Click, who went on a tirade and became “offended” that it wasn’t a “real problem.” Williams upped the ante by saying he was “outraged” by Brown Piccolantonio’s comments.

Brown Piccoloantonio’s actual question concerned the phrase “parental alienation” that appeared in the bill, a concept rejected by major medical and psychological associations and used to defend parents who sexually abuse their children.

“Why is this term included in this bill, especially at a time when we are having many conversations and reckonings with child sexual abuse in this country?” she asked.

Williams said the phrase refers to situations in which “external entities approach a child for support online,

Tell them they are transgender, give them resources, convince them to run away from home and they will end up in the arms of human traffickers.” He said the bill included “parental alienation” to ensure parents have “the absolute right to raise their children” in the way they see fit.

“We should not have an entity in this state that could quietly and secretly investigate you, label you, and superstitiously work to take your child away just because you don’t fall for the wokeness that’s emanating from the Democratic Party,” Williams said.

Piccolantonio then asked about parents who actually affirm their transgender children.

“Do they abuse their children?” she asked. “Should they lose custody of their children?”

“That is not part of this legislation and no, we are not suggesting that they should lose custody of their children,” Click replied.

Conversion therapy

Later in the hearing, Click cited a portion of the bill that affirms a parent’s “right” to seek mental health services to free a child from a transgender identity and prevents state agencies from classifying psychological and mental health treatment that affirms a child’s sex assigned at birth as “conversion therapy.”

Click on conversion therapy that is incorrectly described as using only “forceful” methods.

“[Conversion therapy] it requires pain: electroconvulsive therapy, ice baths and the like,” Click said.

According to American Psychological AssociationConversion therapy encompasses any “efforts to discourage or change behaviors associated with LGBTQ+ identity and expression” and is based on the premise that “being LGBTQ+ is a disease that must be cured and any behavior that indicates or reflects an LGBTQ+ identity should be avoided.” Conversion therapy has already happened condemned by every major medical and psychological organization.

Click said that affirming transgender youth is “real” conversion therapy and that lesbian, gay and bisexual people agree with him.

“Many people in the LGB community have said [affirming trans youth] it’s conversion therapy because you take children who are usually gay, bisexual or lesbian and you tell them they have to change their gender for it to be legal,” Click said. “A lot of people in this [LBG] “The public is outraged by this.”

HB 693 has not yet been scheduled for a next hearing.

START ACTION

• Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2025 LGBTQ+ Legislation Guide can be found here.
• To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
• To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
• To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
• 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 support, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860