Late last month, Townhall reported how one Republican governor vetoed measures to protect women’s sports and to protect children from irreversible, experimental transgender “care.” This includes puberty blockers, sex reassignment surgery, and hormone therapy treatment.
Predictably, the governor came under fire by women’s sports advocates and others who oppose this kind of transgender ideology. And, the state legislature had enough votes to override the veto.
At the time, the governor said that his state “would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most, the parents.”
This week, the governor, Mike DeWine of Ohio, reversed course, and announced that he signed an executive order banning gender surgeries for kids (via FOX 8):
“A week has gone by, and I still feel just as firmly as I did that day,” said DeWine. “I believe that parents, not the government should be making these very crucial medical decisions for the children.”
Still, the governor said on a Friday a ban on gender transition surgery is the exception because there is a “broad consensus against surgeries for minors.” Nick Lashutka, Ohio Children’s Hospital Association president, previously testified the state’s children’s hospitals “do not perform any surgeries on minors for the condition of gender dysphoria.”
DeWine also announced on Friday that Ohio’s Department of Health and Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services will be proposing several draft rules that “will provide protections for children and adults receiving care in this area from hospitals and clinics,” including the following:
Requirement of a multi-disciplinary team to support a patient through gender transition care.
Requirement of a comprehensive care plan that includes sufficient informed consent from parents of the risk associated with gender transition treatment.
Requirement of comprehensive and lengthy mental health counseling prior to being considered for gender transition treatment.
DeWine said these proposed rules would prevent “fly-by-night” clinics that allegedly don’t provide adequate mental health counseling.
Last month, Isabelle Ayala, 20, a female detransitioner from Florida, told the Independent Women’s Forum that she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria after meeting with a doctor for only 45 minutes when she was 14. She explained that her doctors sat her parents down and said that she would kill herself if she did not undergo gender treatment. At her next appointment, she got on hormones, which she stayed on until the lockdowns in 2020.
Now, Ayala is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics for their role in her gender care.
“I still struggle a lot, mentally and physically,” Ayala said.
“I don’t even like to think about my fertility,” she added. “It is my greatest fear to go to the gynecologist and have them tell me that I can’t have children over some decisions that were made when I was 14.”