The high court said prosecutors can enforce the ban, at least for now.
The Ohio Supreme Court has issued a ruling that allows the state to enforce a ban on transgender treatments for minors, including the use of cross-sex hormones.
A majority of justices on April 29
granted an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal, which enables enforcement of the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.
The
law, which took effect in 2024, prohibits doctors from performing gender reassignment surgeries on minors and prescribing children cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers “for the purpose of assisting the minor individual with gender transition.”
A judge previously upheld the law,
describing it as “neither arbitrary nor unreasonable.” A state appeals court panel in March
overturned that decision, concluding the law improperly interfered with the right of parents to decide on medical treatments for their children.
“On review of the record before us, we find a minor’s access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria—as recommended by an independent medical provider and given with the informed consent of their parents, assent of the minor, and in accordance with the prevailing standards of care—is the type of medical decision parents have a fundamental interest in making on behalf of their children,” the panel said at the time.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost appealed the ruling. In an emergency motion requesting a stay pending appeal, he
said that “the State asks the Court simply to preserve the status quo—protection for Ohio’s children—until the Court decides what to do with the case.”
Preserving the status quo would avoid confusion for children, parents, and doctors, he said.
The Ohio Supreme Court’s 4–3 decision did not detail why the high court decided to grant the request.
Justices Sharon L. Kennedy, Patrick F. Fischer, and Jennifer Brunner dissented, the court said.
The case against the law was brought by two families who say their children are transgender and that the law prevents them from obtaining the treatments they want. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is representing the families.
“It is a terrible shame that the Supreme Court of Ohio is permitting the state to evade compliance with the Ohio Constitution,” Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio,
said in a statement. “We will continue to fight this extreme ban as the case goes ahead before the Supreme Court of Ohio.”
Yost
said on the social media platform X that the ruling “means the SAFE Act protecting minors from irreversible sex-change treatments remains the law of Ohio.”
