On Tuesday, April 16, Ohio judge Michael J. Holbrook of Franklin County temporarily blocked an indefinite ban on gender-affirming care for minors that had passed just one day prior.
The law restricted gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies, while also preventing transgender females from playing on women’s sports teams from kindergarten through college. It was set to take effect on April 24.
The temporary block will last for two weeks or until another hearing to consider a longer-term order banning the law, whichever is sooner. Holbrook explained that the ban likely violates the requirement that state legislation deals with a single subject.
On Monday, Ohio’s Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) adopted two rules into the administrative code which banned gender transition surgery and gender affirming care for minors.
The rules, which were introduced by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, grant exemptions for persons “born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development,” individuals who have “received a diagnosis of a disorder of sexual development,” or someone who “needs treatment for any infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been caused or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition services,” whether or not those services were done legally.
At the start of 2024, DeWine signed an executive order banning gender transition surgery for minors in Ohio that was set to expire at the start of May.
The movement on the rules comes after other bills were introduced in the Ohio legislature as recently as 2023 to ban transgender women from participating in high school and college sports, and prohibit gender affirming care for minors.
In December 2023, DeWine vetoed a bill that would have banned minors from receiving gender-affirming care and barred transgender females from playing in women’s sports. His veto was overrode and the law remains under challenge in court.
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