This includes Bobbie Arnold, a 43-year-old transgender woman in rural Preble County who started feminizing hormones in her mid 30s. Arnold told this news organization that she would have jumped at the opportunity to have begun her transition earlier in life.
“Looking back, absolutely, I would have undergone this at the earliest age possible. I can just imagine how different my life would be — would have been — if I had had access to that at an earlier age,” Arnold said.
Arnold explained that eliminating the option of puberty blockers could be particularly harmful to transgender women, who, if forced to go through male puberty, could experience physical changes that would make it significantly harder “for them to be able to go through this life and blend with society.”
“The changes that we experience going through puberty, especially as transgender women, a lot of those changes cannot be undone later in life,” she said.
Arnold is a Democratic candidate for the Ohio House in a deep-red district currently represented by Rep. Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria.
Creech, who voted in support of the legislation each of the three times it hit the House floor, told this news organization that his district is in “full support” of the legislation and said he was proud to represent his constituents’ interests with his votes.
“I would say that the adverse effects of the treatments probably are just as adverse as not being on them, in my opinion,” the Republican lawmaker said. “I think gender affirming care for youth is not a good decision. There’s a lot of decisions that need to be made in the future and they’re blocking themselves in the corner at an early age.”
Creech’s comments fall in line with many other Republican lawmakers who are concerned about the potential health consequences of such treatments. In particular, treatments such as supplemental estrogen for transgender women, “can affect fertility and sexual function, and it might lead to health problems,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
Increased suicide fears
Mel Carroll, a Dayton-based, Black transgender man and manager of gender affirming care health navigation for Equitas Health, told this news organization that he fears a spike in acute mental health issues, including a rise in suicide, for future transgender minors who would, under the bill, not be able to access medical treatments.
Carroll, 54, began his medical transition at 40 and spoke to this news organization on his own behalf, though he did confirm that Equitas does not provide gender dysphoria treatment of any sort for minors and that his stance is not shaped by financial impact the law would have, if any, on the company.
Like Arnold, Carroll said he would have benefited from beginning his transition before turning 18. He likened the experience of growing up with gender dysphoria, particularly in formative teenage years, as “living with a mask on.”
“If people start their gender affirming care at a younger age, it’s better for them — and, this is just my opinion — mental health wise, because you’re battling and you start to hate yourself after a while because you’re not the person you know you are,” Carroll said.
Carroll explained that minors, if in the right environment, have fewer negative outside factors to take into consideration than adults do when contemplating a medical transition. He explained that many adults would fear violence or assault against them, losing a job and experiencing homelessness or family and friends abandonment — fears that minors in the right environment could be sheltered from.
“As a child, you don’t have those those same fears as you do as an adult,” he said.
Statehouse debate
The Ohio House voted 65-28 on Wednesday to override DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68.
While the legislation has two critical functions, much of the debate surrounding the topic has centered on the gender affirming care aspect of the bill, which includes a late-added provision that allows minors already receiving gender affirming medical care to continue their treatment.
Gender affirming medical care ranges from puberty blockers used to stave off the effects of puberty in transgender teenagers; feminizing or masculinizing hormones to reverse the effects of puberty; or gender affirming surgeries including genital reconstruction (known as “bottom” surgery) and double mastectomies or breast enhancements (known as “top” surgery).
In the Statehouse, perspectives on how important it is for transgender youth to have the choice of starting or foregoing gender affirming medical care can largely be sorted into to three categories.
There are those who believe trans minors, their families and doctors ought to be allowed to make case-by-case decisions without limitations, a stance echoed by Democratic lawmakers; there are those like DeWine who believe that hormone treatments should be available, but not surgery; and there are those like the voting bulk of Republican lawmakers who believe that any such medical treatment should be out of reach for minors, full stop.
Decision makers in all three camps have repeatedly stated that they believe their approach is what’s best for Ohio children.
With the House’s vote cast, it’s expected that the Republican-dominated Ohio Senate will follow in its next session scheduled for late January. The bill would go into effect 90 days thereafter. But some of the Senate GOP, including Sen. Niraj Antani of Miamisburg, are pushing for the override to be acted on with more haste.
“I think we should come back immediately,” Antani told this news organization.
Follow DDN statehouse reporter Avery Kreemer on X or reach out to him at Avery.Kreemer@coxinc.com or at 614-981-1422.
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