COLUMBUS — A Franklin County judge on Tuesday extended his order blocking enforcement of a new law barring physicians from providing transgender medical care to minors.
The temporary restraining order, or TRO, will remain in place until May 20, which will carry past the scheduled May 16-17 hearing when Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Holbrook will consider whether to upgrade the order to a more open-ended preliminary injunction.
“Absent relief from this court, the Health Care Ban will be in force and effect, and defendants have expressed every intent to enforce the law,” reads the motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio urging the extension.
Attorney General Dave Yost had asked the judge to dismiss the case altogether.
In the meantime, he has also asked the Ohio Supreme Court to intervene to lift the part of the order applying to the prohibition on those born biologically male from participating in female-only interscholastic sports.
“Noticeably absent from the complaint are claims concerning any of the elements of standing for the sports or parental custody provisions,” Mr. Yost’s office wrote in its motion to dismiss. “Their claims solely relate to the medical provisions of the law.”
Judge Holbook on April 16 issued the two-week TRO, preventing House Bill 68 in its entirety from taking effect. He decided initially that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of the case and would likely be irreparably harmed if the law took effect.
Mr. Yost’s emergency motion to the Supreme Court urges it to bifurcate the issues so that the female sports provisions can proceed.
Under the law, physicians would be prohibited from providing gender-reassignment surgery, puberty-blocking drugs, and cross-sex hormone therapy regardless of whether a minor’s parents have consented to the treatment.
Sponsored by Rep. Gary Click (R., Vickery), the law provides an exception for those already on puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy at the time the law takes effect.
Mental health professionals would be prohibited from diagnosing or counseling a minor for gender dysphoria without consent from at least one parent or guardian. Medical professionals who violate the law could face discipline from their respective licensing boards.
The law also prohibits government-financed Medicaid from paying for such treatment.
Among other potential constitutional questions, Judge Holbook indicated in his TRO that the law might violate the so-called “single-subject rule” in the Ohio Constitution that generally balks at combining unrelated measures into a single law.
He noted that the health-care and athletic provisions had been separate bills — Saving Ohio Adolescents from Experimentation and Saving Women’s Sports — prior to being merged and passed through the Republican-controlled General Assembly.
But Mr. Yost counters, “Every statutory provision contained in H.B. 68 encompasses a single, unifying purpose: the protection of Ohio’s children and youth amidst the growing trend of transgender identification.”
Gov. Mike DeWine, while supporting the sports provision, vetoed the bill at the urging of children’s hospitals and others who argued that parents and physicians were better positioned to make health-care decisions affecting minors.
Fellow Republicans in the legislature overrode that veto.
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