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.”
START ACTION
- To access The Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2026 LGBTQ+ legislation guide, click here.
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