Ohio is solid Republicanthanks to Donald Trump’s success in win manufacturing workers and rural Americans, and has Republican governor with veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate. But on Friday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would have protected girls’ sports from invasion by biological males and protected children from being mutilated by transgender surgery and treatment.
Ohio’s HB 68 is similar to what was already in place passed in about two dozen other states, including neighboring Indiana and Kentucky, each of which overrode its governor’s veto to pass similar legislation. Kentucky’s law was already there sustained by the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati and Ohio’s presiding judge.
The bill was passed above the 60% threshold required to override a veto. While all of these lawmakers should have immediately criticized DeWine’s veto, DeWine’s strongest rebuke came from Trump himself.
“DeWine, yes fallen radical left,” Trump noted on his Truth Social platform. “No wonder he gets booed loudly in Ohio every time I introduce him at rallies, but I won’t be introducing him again. I’m fed up with this “stiff,” Trump added.
“What was he thinking,” Trump continued, referring to DeWine and his veto. “The bill would end child mutilation and prevent men from participating in women’s sports. Let’s hope that the legislator will repeal it. Do it quickly!!!”
But DeWine added insult to injury by adopting the left’s style of fallacious reasoning to justify his veto, bowing to those who profit from these lucrative decisions. DeWine said he is holding off on making a decision until the child’s medical team makes a decision.
Life-altering operations on minors are not properly authorized by those who benefit from their performance. How explained by Dr. Ben Carson, former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center: “They’re called juveniles for a reason. There are many things they don’t really know and they learn over time as they become mature.
“I would absolutely and emphatically refuse under any circumstances,” Carson said of performing transgender procedures on minors. Carson added: “I suspect that in the future we will look back on this transgender period and say, ‘How could these people be so stupid?'”
Governor DeWine did not cite any prominent authorities advocating for the protection of minors from life-wrecking treatments. Instead, he said, “the parents looked me in the eye and told me this, but if it wasn’t for this treatment, their baby would be dead.”
No child has ever died due to lack of gender reassignment, and on the other side of the ledger there is a tremendous harm that Governor DeWine ignored. Minors are subjected to transgender procedures and treatment deprived ever had their own natural families, and some who regretted their procedures sued those who performed them.
“At the end of the day, I think this is about protecting human life,” DeWine said with a straight face, opening the floodgates to a billion-dollar industry that exploits child mutilation. He then promised to issue fresh regulations, but they would not protect children in any significant way.
As regards sports issue, Governor DeWine provided no justification for opening girls’ locker rooms and boys’ track and field competitions. DeWine has previously stated that sports decisions should be left to leagues like the NCAAthat benefits from allowing transgender people to compete while pandering to the liberal media that controls its lucrative television contracts.
Three petitions for certification relating to similar laws passed in Tennessee and Kentucky are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, with responses due by early February. The Tennessee Good Law petition states that “the Sixth Circuit’s decision deepens an existing split with the Eighth Circuit” over a similar law in Arkansas.
However, the Eighth District, which is based primarily in St. Louis and presides over seven Midwestern states, later agreed to a uncommon en banc preliminary hearing on an Arkansas law banning surgery for transgender people. This suggests that a majority of Republicans in the Eighth District will agree with the Sixth District and uphold this type of law.
The U.S. Supreme Court has shied away from this issue when approached from the conservative side, and the left may feel emboldened by the fact that it may win on the Supreme Court. Amid so much judicial chaos on Trump-related issues, Chief Justice John Roberts’ annual year-end report was devoted to foolish speculation about the future of artificial intelligence (AI).
Fortunately, several U.S. appeals courts in the central and southern regions of our country have upheld laws prohibiting transgender procedures and boys competing in girls’ sports. In addition to the Sixth and Eighth Circuits, the Eleventh Circuit ruled in favor of an Alabama law protecting children from the trans industry.
John and Andy Schlafly are the sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) and run the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles writing and policy work.
